"Nice girl. But that's a tough bunch in that Gap, sure as you're alive; yes, sir."

De Spain was well aware the canny boss ought to know. McAlpin had lived at one time in the Gap, and was himself reputed to have been a hardy and enduring rider on a night round-up.

"Anything sick, Jim?" asked de Spain, walking on down the barn and looking at the horses. It was only the second time since he had given him the job that de Spain had called the barn boss "Jim," and McAlpin answered with the rising a.s.surance of one who realizes he is "in"

right. "Not so much as a sore hoof in either alley, Mr. de Spain. I try to take care of them, sir."

"What are we paying you, Jim?"

"Twenty-seven a week, sir; pretty heavy work at that."

"We'll try to make that thirty-two after this week."

McAlpin touched his cap. "Thank you kindly, sir, I'm sure. It costs like h.e.l.l to live out here, Mr. de Spain."

"Lefever says you live off him at poker."

"Ha, ha! Ha, ha, sir! John will have his joke. He's always after me to play poker with him--I don't like to do it. I've got a family to support--he ain't. But by and far, I don't think John and me is ten dollars apart, year in and year out. Look at that bay, sir! A month ago Elpaso said that horse was all in--look at him now. I manage to keep things up."

"What did you say," asked de Spain indifferently, "had been the matter with Nan Morgan?" Her name seemed a whole mouthful to speak, so fearful was he of betraying interest.

"Why, I really didn't say, sir. And I don't know. But from what she says, and the way she coughs, I'm thinking it was a touch of this p-new-monia that's going around so much lately, sir."

His listener recalled swiftly the days that had pa.s.sed since the night he had seen her wet through in the cold rain at Sleepy Cat. He feared Jim's diagnosis might be right. And he had already made all arrangements to meet the occasion now presenting itself. Circ.u.mstances seemed at last to favor him, and he looked at his watch. The down stage bringing Nan back would be due in less than an hour.

"Jim," he said thoughtfully, "you are doing the right thing in showing some good-will toward the Morgans."

"Now, I'm glad you think that, sir."

"You know I unintentionally rubbed their backs the wrong way in dragging Sa.s.soon out."

"They're jealous of their power, I know--very jealous."

"This seems the chance to show that I have no real animosity myself toward the outfit."

Since de Spain was not looking at him, McAlpin c.o.c.ked two keen and curious eyes on the sphinx-like birthmark of the very amiable speaker's face. However, the astute boss, if he wondered, made no comment. "When the stage comes in," continued de Spain quietly, "have the two grays--Lady and Ben--hitched to my own light Studebaker. I'll drive her over to the Gap myself."

"The very thing," exclaimed McAlpin, staring and struggling with his breath.

"In some way I've happened, both times I talked with her, to get in wrong--understand?" McAlpin, with clearing wits, nodded more than once. "No fault of mine; it just happened so. And she may not at first take kindly to the idea of going with me."

"I see."

"But she ought to do it. She will be tired--it's a long, dusty ride for a well woman, let alone one that has been ill."

"So it is, so it is!"

De Spain looked now shamelessly at his ready-witted aid. "See that her pony is lame when she gets here--can't be ridden. But you'll take good care of him and send him home in a few days--get it?"

McAlpin half closed his eyes. "He'll be so lame it would stagger a cowboy to back him ten feet--and never be hurt a mite, neither. Trust me!"

"No other horse that she could ride, in the barn?"

"No horse she could ride between Calabasas and Thief River."

"If she insists on riding _something_, or even walking home,"

continued de Spain dubiously, for he felt instinctively that he should have the task of his life to induce Nan to accept any kind of a peace-offering, "I'll ride or walk with her anyway. Can you sleep me here to-night, on the hay?"

"Sleep you on a hair mattress, sir. You've got a room right here up-stairs, didn't you know that?"

"Don't mind the bed," directed de Spain prudently. "I like the hay better."

"As you like; we've got plenty of it fresh up-stairs, from the Gap.

But the bed's all right, sir; it is, on me word."

With arrangements so begun, de Spain walked out-of-doors and looked reflectively up the Sleepy Cat road. One further refinement in his appeal for Nan's favor suggested itself. She would be hungry, possibly faint in the heat and dust, when she arrived. He returned to McAlpin: "Where can I get a good cup of coffee when the stage comes in?"

"Go right down to the inn, sir. It's a new chap running it--a half-witted man from Texas. My wife is cooking there off and on.

She'll fix you up a sandwich and a cup of good coffee."

It was four o'clock, and the sun beat fiercely on the desert. De Spain walked down to the inn unmindful of the heat. In summer rig, with his soft-shirt collar turned under, his forearms bare, and his thoughts engaged, he made his way rapidly on, looking neither to the right nor the left.

As he approached the weather-beaten pile it looked no more inviting in sunshine than it had looked in shadow; and true to its traditions, not a living being was anywhere to be seen. The door of the office stood ajar. De Spain, pushing it all the way open, walked in. No one greeted him as he crossed the threshold, and the unsightly room was still bare of furnishings except for the great mahogany bar, with its two very large broken mirrors and the battered pilasters and carvings.

De Spain pounded on the bar. His effort to attract attention met with no response. He walked to the left end of the bar, lifted the hand-rail that enclosed the s.p.a.ce behind it, and pushed open the door between the mirrors leading to the back room. This, too, was empty. He called out--there was no response. He walked through a second door opening on an arcaded pa.s.sageway toward the kitchen--not a soul was in sight. There was a low fire in the kitchen stove, but Mrs. McAlpin had apparently gone home for a while. Walking back toward the office, he remembered the covered way leading to a patio, which in turn opened on the main road. He perceived also that at the end next the office the covered way faced the window at the end of the long bar.

Irritated at the desertion of the place, due, he afterward learned, to the heat of the afternoon, and disappointed at the frustration of his purpose, he walked back through the rear room into the office. As he lifted the hand-rail and, pa.s.sing through, lowered it behind him, he took out his watch to see how soon the stage was due. While he held the timepiece in his hand he heard a rapid clatter of hoofs approaching the place. Thinking it might be Scott and Lefever arriving from the south an hour ahead of time, he started toward the front door--which was still open--to greet them. Outside, hurried footsteps reached the door just ahead of him and a large man, stepping quickly into the room, confronted de Spain. One of the man's hands rested lightly on his right side. De Spain recognized him instantly; the small, drooping head, carried well forward, the keen eyes, the long hand, and, had there still been a question in his mind, the loud-patterned, shabby waistcoat would have proclaimed beyond doubt--Deaf Sandusky.

CHAPTER X

THE GLa.s.s b.u.t.tON

Even as the big fellow stepped lightly just inside and to the left--as de Spain stood--of the door and faced him, the encounter seemed to de Spain accidental. While Sandusky was not a man he would have chosen to meet at that time, he did not at first consider the incident an eventful one. But before he could speak, a second man appeared in the doorway, and this man appeared to be joking with a third, behind him.

As the second man crossed the threshold, de Spain saw Sandusky's high-voiced little fighting crony, Logan, who now made way, as he stepped within to the right of the open door, for the swinging shoulders and rolling stride of Gale Morgan.

Morgan, eying de Spain with insolence, as was his wont, closed the door behind him with a bang. Then he backed his powerful frame significantly against it.

A blind man could have seen the completeness of the snare. An unpleasant feeling flashed across de Spain's perception. It was only for the immeasurable part of a second--while uncertainty was resolving itself into a rapid certainty. When Gale Morgan stepped into the room on the heels of his two Calabasas friends, de Spain would have sold for less than a cup of coffee all his chances for life.

Nevertheless, before Morgan had set his back fairly against the door and the trap was sprung, de Spain had mapped his fight, and had already felt that, although he might not be the fortunate man, not more than one of the four within the room would be likely to leave it alive.

He did not retreat from where he halted at the instant Sandusky entered. His one slender chance was to hug to the men that meant to kill him. Morgan, the nearest, he esteemed the least dangerous of the three; but to think to escape both Sandusky and Logan at close quarters was, he knew, more than ought to be hoped for.

While Morgan was closing the door, de Spain smiled at his visitors: "That isn't necessary, Morgan: I'm not ready to run." Morgan only continued to stare at him. "I need hardly ask," added de Spain, "whether you fellows have business with me?"

He looked to Sandusky for a reply; it was Logan who answered in shrill falsetto: "No. We don't happen to have business that I know of. A friend of ours may have a little, maybe!" Logan, lifting his shoulders with his laugh, looked toward his companions for an answer to his joke.