Part 20 (2/2)

They continued to come on in spite of this warning, but when they reached the foot of the little slope that led to the ridge at the edge of which was Calumet's gully, they halted, looking up at Calumet inquiringly. The ridge towered above their heads, and so they were in no danger, but Betty halted only for a moment and then continued to approach until she stood on the ridge, exposed to Taggart's fire. But, of course, Taggart would not fire at her.

”What's wrong?” she demanded of Calumet; ”what were you shooting at?”

”Friend of yours,” he said brusquely.

”Who?”

”Neal Taggart. We've been picnicin' all night.”

Her face flooded with color, but paled instantly. Calumet thought there was reproach in the glance she threw at him, but he did not have time to make certain, for at the instant she looked at him she darted toward a rock about ten feet distant, no doubt intending to conceal herself behind it.

Calumet watched her. When she gained the shelter of the rock she was about to kneel in some fringing mesquite at its base when she heard Calumet yell at her. She turned, hesitating in the act of kneeling, and looked at Calumet. His face was ashen. His heavy pistol pointed in her direction; it seemed that its muzzle menaced her. She straightened, anger in her eyes, as the weapon crashed.

Her knees shook, she covered her face with her hands to shut out the reeling world, for she thought that in his rage he was shooting at her.

But in the next instant she felt his arms around her; she was squeezed until she thought her bones were being crushed, and in the same instant she was lifted, swung clear of the ground and set suddenly down again.

She opened her eyes, her whole body trembling with wrath, to look at Calumet, within a foot of her. But he was not looking at her; his gaze was fixed with sardonic satisfaction upon a huge rattler which was writhing in the throes of death at the base of the rock where she had been about to kneel. Its head had been partly severed from its body and while she looked Calumet's pistol roared again and its destruction was completed.

She was suddenly faint; the world reeled again. But the sensation pa.s.sed quickly and she saw Calumet standing close to her, looking at her with grim disapprobation. Apparently he had forgotten his danger in his excitement over hers.

”I told you not to come here,” he said.

But a startled light leaped into her eyes at the words. Calumet swung around as he saw her rifle swing to her shoulder. He saw Taggart near the edge of the wood, two hundred yards away, kneeling, his rifle leveled at them. He yelled to Betty but she did not heed him.

Taggart's bullet sang over his head as the gun in Betty's hands crashed. Taggart stood quickly erect, his rifle dropped from his hands as he ran, staggering from side to side, to his horse. He mounted and fled, his pony running desperately, accompanied by the music of a rifle that suddenly began popping on the other side of Calumet--Dade's. But the distance was great, the target elusive, and Dade's bullets sang futilely.

They watched Taggart until he vanished, his pony running steadily along a far level, and then Betty turned to see Calumet looking at her with a twisted, puzzled smile.

”You plugged him, I reckon,” he said, nodding toward the vast distance into which his enemy was disappearing. ”Why, it's plumb ridiculous.

If my girl would plug me that way, I'd sure feel--”

His meaning was plain, though he did not finish. She looked at him straight in the eyes though her face was crimson and her lips trembled a little.

”You are a brute!” she said. Turning swiftly she began to descend the slope toward the ranchhouse.

Calumet stood looking after her for a moment, his face working with various emotions that struggled for expression. Then, ignoring Dade, who stood near him, plainly puzzled over this enigma, he walked over to the edge of the wood where Taggart's rifle lay, picked it up and made his way to the ranchhouse.

CHAPTER XVII

MORE PROGRESS

A strange thing was happening to Calumet. His character was in the process of remaking. Slowly and surely Betty's good influence was making itself felt. This in spite of his knowledge of her secret meeting with Neal Taggart. To be sure, so far as his actions were concerned, he was the Calumet of old, a man of violent temper and vicious impulses, but there were growing governors that were continually slowing his pa.s.sions, strange, new thoughts that were thrusting themselves insistently before him. He was strangely uncertain of his att.i.tude toward Betty, disturbed over his feelings toward her. Despite his knowledge of her secret meeting with Taggart, with a full consciousness of all the rage against her which that knowledge aroused in him, he liked her. At the same time, he despised her. She was not honest. He had no respect for any woman who would sneak as she had sneaked. She was two-faced; she was trying to cheat him out of his heritage. She had deceived his father, she was trying to deceive him. She was unworthy of any admiration whatever, but whenever he looked at her, whenever she was near him, he was conscious of a longing that he could not fight down.

And there was Dade. He often watched Dade while they were working together on the bunkhouse in the days following the incident of the ambush by Taggart. The feeling that came over him at these times was indescribable and disquieting, as was his emotion whenever Dade smiled at him. He had never experienced the deep, stirring spirit of comrades.h.i.+p, the unselfish affection which sometimes unites the hearts of men; he had had no ”chum” during his youth. But this feeling that came over him whenever he looked at Dade was strangely like that which he had for his horse, Blackleg. It was deeper, perhaps, and disturbed him more, yet it was the same. At the same time, it was different.

But he could not tell why. He liked to have Dade around him, and one day when the latter went to Lazette on some errand for Betty he felt queerly depressed and lonesome. That same night when Dade drove into the ranchhouse yard Calumet had smiled at him, and a little later when Dade had told Betty about it he had added:

”When I seen him grin at me that cordial, I come near fallin' off my horse. I was that fl.u.s.tered! Why, Betty, he's comin' around! The durn cuss likes me!”

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