CHAPTER IV

HIS SHADOW BEFORE

At ten o'clock the following morning, in a rear room of "Balleau's First Chance" saloon--which was directly across the street from the Lamo Eating-House--Luke Deveny and two other men were sitting at a card-table with bottle and gla.s.ses between them. A window in the eastern side of the room gave the men an un.o.bstructed view of the desert, and for half an hour, as they talked and drank, they looked out through the window.

A tall, muscular man with a slightly hooked nose, keen blue eyes with a cold glint in them, black hair, and an equally black mustache which revealed a firm-lipped mouth with curves at the corners that hinted of cynicism, and, perhaps cruelty, was sitting at the table so that he faced the window. His smile, as he again glanced out of the window, roved to Deveny--who sat at his right.

"One man--an' a led horse," he said shortly. "Looks like Laskar."

Deveny--big, smooth-shaven--with black, glowing, attractive eyes that held a glint quite as hard as that which shone in the eyes of the speaker, looked long out of the window at a moving dot on the desert, which seemed to be traveling toward them. Deveny had looked before; but now he saw two dots where at other times he had seen only one. His lips held a slight pout as he glanced at the speaker.

"You're right, Rogers," he said; "there's only one. The old fool must have put up a fight."

Deveny filled a gla.s.s from the bottle and drank slowly. His features were large. His nose was well shaped, with wide nostrils that hinted of a fiery, pa.s.sionate nature; his thrusting chin and the heavy neck muscles told of strength, both mental and physical--of mental strength that was of a tenacious character, of physical strength that would respond to any demand of the will.

He was handsome, and yet the suggestion of ruthlessness in the atmosphere of him--lurking behind the genial, easy-going exterior that he wore for appearances--or because it was his nature to conceal his pa.s.sions until he desired to unleash them--was felt by those who knew him intimately. It had been felt by Barbara Morgan.

Deveny was king of the lawless element in the Lamo section. The magnetism of him; the arrogance, glossed over with the calm and cold politeness of his manner; his unvarying immaculateness; the air of large and complete confidence which marked his every action; the swiftness with which he struck when he was aroused, or when his authority was questioned, placed him without dissent at the head of the element that ruled the Lamo country.

Deveny ruled, but Deveny's rule was irksome to Strom Rogers--the man to whom Deveny had just spoken. For while Deveny drank, Rogers watched him with covert vigilance, with a jeering gleam far back in his eyes, with a secret envy and jealousy, with hatred and contempt and mockery.

Yet there was fear in Rogers' eyes, too--a mere glimmer of it. Yet it was there; and when Deveny set his gla.s.s down and looked straight at Rogers, it was that fear which brought the fawning, insincere smirk to Rogers'

lips.

"See the girl?" questioned Rogers.

Deveny laughed lowly. Apparently he did not notice the glow in Rogers'

eyes; but had Rogers looked closely he might have seen Deveny's lips straighten as he shot a glance at the other.

"Had the room next to her last night. Heard her drag the bed in front of the door of her room. She knew I was there, all right!" Deveny laughed deeply. "She's wised up by this time. Lolly Kaye hates her--because Barbara's a good-looking girl, I suppose. That's like some women. Lolly would see Barbara roasting in h.e.l.l and not give her a hand!"

"Lolly's been disappointed in love--I reckon." Rogers' laugh was hollow, mirthless. And again Deveny shot a glance at him.

"But you didn't bother her--Barbara?" questioned Rogers in a dry, light voice.

"No," grinned Deveny; "that time hasn't come--yet. It's coming soon. I told Lolly to keep an eye on her; I've got Engle and Barthman and Kelmer watching at the doors so Barbara can't light out for the Rancho Seco. She don't get away until tomorrow. Then she goes with me to the end of Sunset Trail. I've sent Shorty Mallo to Willow's Wells for the parson."

"Barbara know what's up?" Rogers' voice was low and throaty.

Again Deveny glanced at him--sharply.

"h.e.l.l, no!" he snapped. "It's none of her d.a.m.ned business--nor anybody's!" He grinned maliciously when he saw Rogers' face whiten.

"Barbara will need a husband now," Deveny went on. "With old Morgan gone and her brother sloped from the home ranch, she'll be kind of lonesome. I aim to cure her of that."

He laughed, and Rogers writhed inwardly. For Rogers had long nursed a secret hope that one day the fates might take a notion to give him the chance that Deveny intended to seize.

But Rogers was forced to conceal his jealousy and disappointment. He laughed mirthlessly.

"So she can't get away, eh?--she's corralled!"

"Bah!" declared Deveny; "she won't want to get away--once she knows what I mean--that it's going to be a regular wedding. She'll raise a fuss, most likely, to make folks believe she's unwilling, but in the end she'll get over it."

Deveny glanced out of the window at the blot that was now closer.

"It's Laskar, all regular," he said. "He's leading a sorrel horse--Dolver's horse. Old Morgan got Dolver--looks like, the d.a.m.ned old gopher! Men as willing as Dolver are not found every day." He looked at the third man, who had not spoken.

"Lawson," he said, "you mosey down the trail a little piece and meet Laskar. Bring him here!"

Lawson, a thin-faced, medium-sized man with narrow shoulders, whose distinguishing mark was a set of projecting upper teeth that kept his mouth in a continual smirking smile, got up quickly and went out. Deveny and Rogers, their thoughts centered upon the same person--Barbara Morgan--sat silent, watching Lawson as he rode down the street toward the point where the trail, crossing the broken stretch of country that intervened, merged into the desert.

Half an hour later Laskar, holding his chest, where Purgatory had kicked him, was sitting at the table in the rear room of the First Chance, cursing with a fluency that he had not yielded to in many years.

"Dolver's wiped out!" he gasped hoa.r.s.ely; "plugged so quick he didn't know he was. .h.i.t. A center shot--plumb in the heart; his own gun goin' off while he was fallin'. I looked him over--after. He was croaked complete.

Then that sober-faced hyena lifts my gun--an' the rifle--an' says things to me, which I don't try to cross him. Then he goes behind the rock--where we was havin' it out--an' while he's gone I tries to git my guns from under that devil-eyed cayuse of his'n.

"An' I don't succeed--noways. That black devil turns on a half-dollar an'

plants his hoofs plumb in my breast-bone. If I'd been an inch nearer, or if he'd have kicked me a foot lower, or a foot higher, I'd be layin' out there where Dolver is now, the coyotes an' the buzzards gnawin' at me."

Unmoved by Laskar's incoherence, Deveny calmly watched him. And now, when Laskar paused for breath, Deveny spoke slowly:

"A _black_ horse, you said. How did a black horse get there? Old Morgan rode a bay when he left Lamo--Balleau says."

"Did I say Morgan rode a black horse?" queried Laskar, knowledge in his eyes that he had a thing to tell that would blanch their faces. He grinned, still holding his chest, his glance malicious.

"Did I say a _black_ horse?" he repeated. "Did I say Morgan rode a black horse? Morgan didn't. Morgan rode a bay--an' the Chief run it off after he shot Morgan. But Morgan didn't die right away, an' the Chief he had to slope, he said--an' he did--leavin' me an' Dolver to finish old Morgan.

"We was tryin' our d.a.m.nedest when this guy on the black horse pops up out of nowhere an' salivates Dolver."

"Who was it?"

This was Deveny. He was now leaning forward, a pout on his lips, watching Laskar with an intent, glowering gaze.

"'Drag' Harlan!" shouted Laskar. His face lighted with a hideous joy as he watched the effect of his news.

"'Drag' Harlan! Do you hear?" he went on. "'Drag' Harlan, the Pardo 'two-gun' man! He's headed toward Lamo. He bored Dolver, an' he said that soon as Morgan cashed in he was. .h.i.ttin' the breeze for here!"

Lawson, the man who had gone to meet Laskar, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed hoa.r.s.ely, and stood rigid, his mouth open, his eyes bulging. It was the involuntary expression of the astonishment and fear that had seized him. Laskar forgot the pain in his chest long enough to straighten and grin at Lawson.

Rogers' face had changed color. He, too, had become rigid. He had been in the act of reaching for the bottle on the table, and the hand that had been extended had been suddenly drawn back, so that the hand was now midway between his body and the bottle--and the fingers were clenched.

The other hand, under the table, was likewise clenched, and the muscles of his jaws were corded. Into his eyes had come a furtive, restless gleam, and his face had paled.

Deveny gave no visible sign of perturbation. He coolly reached out, grasped the bottle that Rogers had been reaching for, and poured some of the amber fluid into one of the gla.s.ses. The other men watched him silently--all of them intent to note the tremor they expected to see.

Deveny's hand did not tremble. He noted the glances of the men--the admiration that came into their eyes as with steady muscles he raised the gla.s.s and drank--and he smiled with slight contempt.

"Coming here, eh?" he said evenly. "So he said that. Did he mention what he was coming for?"