Part 14 (2/2)

”Well,” said Lew, ”you can't blame a gent for playing for high stakes if he's going to gamble at all. I guess Red Perris is all right. A kid like him can't help being a little proud of himself.”

”d.a.m.n fat-head,” growled Slim, less merciful, ”sat right next to me and didn't say two words all through breakfast. Ain't going to waste no words on common cowpunchers, maybe.”

So the first impression of Red Jim was created on the ranch, an impression which might be dispelled by the first real test of the man, or which in the absence of such a test might cling to him forever: Perris was a conceited gun-fighter, heart-breaker, and bully. The men who trooped into the bunkhouse behind him already hated him with a religious intensity; in ten minutes, they might have accepted him as a bunkie! For your true Western cowpuncher, when all is said and done, unites with Spartan stoicism a Spartan keenness of suspicion.

It was not hard for the foreman to see the trend of events. Something had roused an ugly mood in Perris. It might be, as he surmised, the girl. No matter what, he was obviously not in a mood to bear tampering with. Hervey determined to force the issue at once, knowing that his other men would be a solid unit behind him.

”Hey there, Red!” he called, cheerily enough, but brusquely, and then, bending over to fuss at a spur, he winked broadly at the other men.

They were instantly keen for the baiting of Perris, whatever form it might take.

”Well?” said Red Perris.

”Trot over to the corral and rope that Roman-nosed buckskin with the white stockings on her forelegs, will you? I got a few things to tend to in here.”

Now there was nothing entirely unheard of in a foreman ordering one of his men to catch a saddle horse for him. But usually such things were done by request rather than demand, and moreover, there was something so breezy in the manner of Hervey, taking the compliance of Red so for granted, that the latter raised his head slowly and turned to the foreman with a gloomy eye. He had come to the ranch to hunt a wild horse, not to play valet to a foreman.

”Partner,” drawled Red Perris, and the silken smoothness of his tones was ample proof that he was enraged. ”I don't know the ways you folks have up here, but around the parts where I've been, a gent that's big enough to ride is big enough to saddle his own hoss.”

The reply of Lew Hervey was just sharp enough to goad the newcomer--just soft enough to stay on the windward side of an insult.

”I'll tell you,” he said quietly. ”Around the Valley of the Eagles, the boys do what the foreman asks 'em to do, most generally. And the foreman don't play favorites. I'm waiting for that hoss, Perris.”

Perris rolled a cigarette, and smiled as he looked at Hervey. It was a sickly smile, his lips being white and stiff. And in another, it might have been considered a sign of fear. In Red Perris everyone there knew it was simply the badge of a rising fury. They knew, by the same token, that he was as dangerous as he had been advertised. Men whom anger reddens are blinded by it; but those who turn pale never stop thinking. Meantime, Red Jim looked at Hervey and looked at the cowpunchers behind Hervey. It was not hard to see that in a pinch they would be solid behind their foreman. They watched him with a wolfish eagerness. Why they should be so instantly hostile he could not guess but he was enough of a traveller to be prepared for strange customs in strange places. There was only one important point: he would not saddle the buckskin. Moreover, at sight of their solid front and their aggressive sneers he grew fighting hot.

”How gents come in these parts,” he said with deliberate scorn, ”I dunno. And I don't care a d.a.m.n. If they brush their foreman's boots and saddle his hosses for him, they can go ahead and do it. But I come up here to catch a wild hoss that the gents in the Valley of the Eagles couldn't get. That's my job, and nothing else.”

The growl of his cowpunchers was sweetest music to the ear of Lew Hervey. He glanced at them as much as to say: ”You see what I got on my hands?” Then he stepped forward and cleared his throat.

”You're young, kid,” he declared. ”When you grow up you'll know better'n to talk like this. But cowpunchers we ain't going to make no trouble for you. But I'll tell you short, Perris, you'll go out and rope that hoss or else roll your blankets and clear out. Understand?

I was joking when I asked you to rope the hoss first. I wanted to see what sort were. Well, I see, and I don't like what I see.”

”Hervey,” began Perris, trembling with his pa.s.sion ”Hervey--”

”Wait a minute,” said the foreman, ”I know your kind. You sign your name with bullets. You pay your way with lead. You bully a crowd by fingering a gun-b.u.t.t. Well, son, that sort of thing don't go in the Valley of the Eagles. Lay a hand on that gun and I'll have the boys tie you in knots and roll you in a barrel of tar we got handy. Perris, get that hoss for me, or get out!”

Red Perris sat down on the edge of his bunk. He made no move towards his revolver. Indeed, it lay almost arm's length away.

Almost--everyone noted that. He crossed his legs and his glance wandered slowly up and down the line of grim faces.

”Partner,” he said softly to Hervey, ”I'm not going to get the hoss and I'm not going to get out. The next move is up to you. Is it tar?”

For a moment Hervey was dazed. No one could have foreseen such daredeviltry as this. At the same time, he was badly cornered. If his men rushed Red Perris, Red Perris would get his gun. And if Red Perris got his gun the first shot would be for Hervey.

”Hold on, boys,” he called suddenly, above the angry curses of his men, ”I'm not going to risk one of you in getting this fool. Miss Jordan hired him. She can fire him if I can't. Which we'll find out p.r.o.nto. Slim, go get her, will you?”

Slim jumped through the door. They heard his footsteps fade away at a run. And then, after an interval of steady silence, his voice began in the distance, replying to sharp, hurried inquiries of Marianne. In another moment Marianne was in the bunkhouse. Her glance shot from Hervey to Perris and back again.

”I knew you'd be up to something like this!” she cried. ”I knew it, Lew Hervey!”

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