While the two were talking de Spain tried to slip away, un.o.bserved by Lefever, on his errand. He failed, as he expected to, and after some familiar abuse, rode off alone, fortified by every possible suggestion at the hands of a man to whom the slightest precaution was usually a joke.

Mountains never look blacker than when one rides into them conscious of the presence of enemies and alert for signs and sounds. But custom dulls the edge of apprehension. De Spain rode slowly up the main road without expecting to meet any one, and he reached the rise where the trail forked to Duke's ranch unchallenged. Here he stopped his horse and looked down toward the roof that sheltered Nan. Night had fallen everywhere, and the increasing rain obscured even the outline of the house. But a light shone through one uncurtained window. He waited some time for a sound of life, for a door to open or close, or for the dog to bark--he heard nothing. Slipping out of the wet saddle, he led his horse in the darkness under the shelter of the lone pine-tree and, securing him, walked slowly toward the house.

The light came from a window in the living-room. Up-stairs and toward the kitchen everything was dark. De Spain walked gingerly around to where he could command the living-room window. He could see within, the figures of three men but, owing to the dim light and the distance at which he stood, he could identify none of them with certainty.

Mindful of the admonitions he had been loaded with, he tramped around the house in narrowing circles, pausing at times to look and listen.

In like manner he circled the barn and stables, until he had made sure there was no ambush and that he was alone outside. He then went among the horses and, working with a flash-light, found Nan's pony, a bridle and, after an ineffectual search for a saddle, led the bareback horse out to where his own stood. Walking over to Nan's window he signalled and called to her. Getting no answer, he tossed a bit of gravel up against her window. His signal met with no response and, caching his rifle under the kitchen porch, he stepped around to the front of the house, where, screened by a bit of shrubbery, he could peer at close range into the living-room.

Standing before the fire burning in the open hearth, and with his back to it, he now saw Gale Morgan. Sitting bolt upright beside the table, square-jawed and obdurate, his stubby brier pipe supported by his hand and gripped in his great teeth, Duke Morgan looked uncompromisingly past his belligerent nephew into the fire. A third and elderly man, heavy, red-faced, and almost toothless as he spoke, sat to the right of the table in a rocking-chair, and looked at Duke; this was the old lawyer and justice from Sleepy Cat, the sheriff's brother--Judge Druel.

Nan was not to be seen. Gale, big and aggressive, was doing most of the talking, and energetically, as was his habit. Duke listened thoughtfully, but seemingly with coldness. Druel looked from Gale to Duke, and appeared occasionally to put in a word to carry the argument along.

De Spain suspected nothing of what they were talking about, but he was uneasy concerning Nan, and was not to be balked, by any combination, of his purpose of finding her. To secure information concerning her was not possible, unless he should enter the house, and this, with scant hesitation, he decided to do.

He wore a snug-fitting leathern coat. He unb.u.t.toned this and threw it open as he stepped noiselessly up to the door. Laying his hand on the k.n.o.b, he paused, then, finding the door unlocked, he pushed it slowly open.

The wind, rushing in, upset his calculations and blew open the door leading from the hall into the living-room. A stream of light in turn shot through the open door, across the hall. Instantly de Spain stepped inside and directly behind the front door--which he now realized he dare not close--and stood expectant in the darkness. Gale Morgan, with an impatient exclamation, strode from the fireplace to close the front door.

As he walked into the hall and slammed the front door shut, he could have touched with his hand the man standing in the shadow behind it.

De Spain, not hoping to escape, stood with folded arms, but under the elbow of his left arm was hidden the long muzzle of his revolver.

Holding his breath, he waited. Gale's mind was apparently filled with other things. He did not suspect the presence of an intruder, and he walked back into the living-room, partly closing the second door. De Spain, following almost on his heels, stepped past this door, past the hall stairs opposite it, and through a curtained opening at the end of the hall into the dining-room. Barely ten feet from him, this room opened through an arch into the living-room, and where he stood he could hear all that was said.

"Who's there?" demanded Duke gruffly.

"n.o.body," said Gale. "Go on, Druel."

"That door never opened itself," persisted Duke.

"The wind blew it open," said Gale impatiently.

"I tell y' it didn't," responded Duke sternly; "somebody came in there, or went out. Maybe she's slipped y'."

"Go up-stairs and see," bellowed Gale at his uncle.

Duke walked slowly out into the hall and, with some difficulty, owing to his injured back, up the stairs. A curtain hung beside the arch where de Spain stood, and this he now drew around him. Gale walked into the hall again, searched it, and waited at the foot of the stairs. De Spain could hear Duke's rough voice up-stairs, but could neither distinguish his words nor hear any response to them. Within a moment the elder man tramped heavily down again, saying only, "She's there," and, followed by Gale, returned to the living-room.

"Now go on, Druel," exclaimed Gale, sitting down impatiently, "and talk quick."

Druel talked softly and through his nose: "I was only going to say it would be a good idea to have two witnesses."

"Nita," suggested Gale.

Duke was profane. "You couldn't keep the girl in the room if she had Nita to help her. And I want it understood, Gale, between you and me, fair and square, that Nan's goin' to live right here with me after this marriage till I'm satisfied she's willing to go to you--otherwise it can't take place, now nor never."

De Spain opened his ears. Gale felt the hard, cold tone of his crusty relative, and answered with like harshness: "What do you keep harping on that for? You've got my word. All I want of you is to keep yours--understand?"

"Come, come," interposed Druel. "There's no need of hard words. But we need two witnesses. Who's going to be the other witness?"

Before any one could answer de Spain stepped out into the open archway before the three men. "I'll act as the second witness," he said.

With a common roar the Morgans bounded to their feet. They were not unused to sudden onslaughts, nor was either of them a man to shrink from a fight at short quarters, if it came to that, but blank astonishment overwhelmed both. De Spain, standing slightly sidewise, his coat lapels flapped wide open, his arms akimbo, and his hands on his hips, faced the three in an att.i.tude of readiness only. He had reckoned on the instant of indecision which at times, when coupled with apprehension, paralyzes the will of two men acting together.

Under the circ.u.mstances either of the Morgans alone would have whipped a gun on de Spain at sight. Together, and knowing that to do so meant death to the one that took the first shot from the archway, each waited for the other; that fraction of a second unsettled their purpose. Instead of bullets, each launched curses at the intruder, and every second that pa.s.sed led away from a fight.

De Spain took their oaths, demands, and abuse without batting an eye.

"I'm here for the second witness," was all he repeated, covering both men with short glances. Druel, his face muddily white as the whiskey bloat deserted it, shrunk inside his shabby clothes. He seemed, every time de Spain darted a look at him, to grow visibly smaller, until his loose bulk had shrivelled inside an armchair hardly large enough normally to contain it.

De Spain with each epithet hurled at him took a dreaded forward step toward Gale, and Druel, in the line of fire, brought his knees up and his head down till he curled like a porcupine. Gale, game as he undoubtedly was, cornered, felt perhaps recollections of Calabasas and close quarters with the brown eyes and the burning face. What they might mean in this little room, which de Spain was crossing step by step, was food for thought. Nor did de Spain break his obstinate silence until their burst of rage had blown. "You've arranged your marriage," he said at length. "Now pull it."

"My cousin's ready to marry me, and she's goin' to do it to-night,"

cried Gale violently.

Duke, towering with rage, looked at de Spain and pointed to the hall door. "You hear that! Get out of my house!" he cried, launching a vicious epithet with the words.

"This isn't your house," retorted de Spain angrily. "This house is Nan's, not yours. When she orders me out I'll go. Bring her down," he thundered, raising his voice to shut off Duke, who had redoubled his abuse. "Bring her into this room," he repeated. "We'll see whether she wants to get married. If she does, I'll marry her. If she doesn't, and you've been putting this up to force her into marrying, so help me G.o.d, you'll be carried out of this room to-night, or I will." He whirled on her uncle with an accusing finger. "You used to be a man, Duke. I've taken from you here to-night what I would take from no man on earth but for the sake of Nan Morgan. She asked me never to touch you. But if you've gone into this thing to trap your own flesh and blood, your dead brother's girl, living under your own protection, you don't deserve mercy, and to-night you shall have what's coming to you.

I've fought you both fair, too fair. Now--before I leave--it's my girl or both of you."

He was standing near Druel. Without taking his eyes off the other men, he caught Druel with his left hand by the coat collar, and threw him half-way across the room. "Get up-stairs, you old carrion, and tell Nan Morgan, Henry de Spain is here to talk to her."

Druel, frightened to death, scrambled into the hall. He turned on de Spain. "I'm an officer of the law. I arrest you for trespa.s.s and a.s.sault," he shouted, shaking with fear.

"Arrest _me_?" echoed de Spain contemptuously. "You scoundrel, if you don't climb those stairs I'll send you to the penitentiary the day I get back to town. Up-stairs with your message!"

"It isn't necessary," said a low voice in the hall, and with the words Nan appeared in the open doorway. Her face was white, but there was no sign of haste or panic in it; de Spain choked back a breath; to him she never had looked in her silence so awe-inspiring.

He addressed her, holding his left hand out with his plea. "Nan," he said, controlling his voice, "these men were getting ready to marry you to Gale Morgan. No matter how you feel toward me now, you know me well enough to know that all I want is the truth: Was this with your consent?"

She stepped into the line of fire between her cousin and de Spain as she answered. "No. You know I shall never marry any man but you. This vile bully," she turned a little to look at her angry cousin, "has influenced Uncle Duke--who never before tried to persecute or betray me--into joining him in this thing. They never could have dragged me into it alive. And they've kept me locked for three days in a room up-stairs, hoping to break me down."

"Stand back, Nan."

If de Spain's words of warning struck her with terror of a situation she could not control, she did not reveal it. "No," she said resolutely. "If anybody here is to be shot, I'll be first. Uncle Duke, you have always protected me from Gale Morgan; now you join hands with him. You drive me from this roof because I don't know how I can protect myself under it."

Gale looked steadily at her. "You promised to marry me," he muttered truculently. "I'll find a way to make you keep your word."

A loud knocking interrupted him, and, without waiting to be admitted, Pardaloe, the cowboy, opened the front door and stalked boldly in from the hall.

If the situation in the room surprised him he gave no evidence of it.

And as he walked in Nan disappeared. Pardaloe was drenched with rain, and, taking off his hat as he crossed the room to the fire, he shook it hard into the blazing wood.

"What do you want, Pardaloe?" snapped Duke.

Pardaloe shook his hat once more and turned a few steps so that he stood between the uncurtained window and the light. "The creek's up,"

he said to Duke in his peculiarly slow, steady tone. "Some of Satt's boys are trying to get the cattle out of the lower corral." He fingered his hat, looked first at Duke, then at Gale, then at de Spain. "Guess they'll need a little help, so I asked Sa.s.soon to come over--" Pardaloe jerked his head indicatively toward the front. "He's outside with some of the boys now."

"Tell Sa.s.soon to come in here!" thundered Gale.

De Spain's left arm shot out. "Hold on, Pardaloe; pull down that curtain behind you!"

"Don't touch that curtain, Pardaloe!" shouted Gale Morgan.