Part 39 (2/2)
The halfbreed's eyes widened in unbelief. ”D'ye really mean it, kid? You saw me shoot Henry Dodd--d'ye really wanta draw with me?”
”I do.”
”But then you'll be dead, and I won't know nothin' about the gems.
Unless that letter tells?”
”Perhaps. You mustn't expect me to take _all_ the chances, you know.”
”Does the letter tell?”
”I haven't opened it, I say.”
Foss studied in drunken seriousness. ”And if you should happen to get me, why--why, where am I at again?” he puzzled.
Oliver laughed outright. ”You're an amusing creature,” he said. ”I don't believe you're half the badman that you imagine you are.” He believed nothing of the sort, but his arms were growing desperately weary and he must goad the drunken gunman into immediate action.
”There's just one thing that's the matter with you,” he gibed on, ready to descend to any speech that would cut the killer and break his deadly calm. ”That's my getting your girl away from you! It's not the gems; it's that that hurts you. Why, say, do you think she'd wipe her feet on you!”
Into the eyes of the halfbreed came a viperish light that almost stilled Oliver's heartbeats. For an instant he feared that he had gone too far, that Foss was about to shoot him down in cold blood.
Foss stood spread-legged in the path, as before, his face twisting with anger, the fingers of his left hand clinching and unclinching themselves. Then Oliver almost ceased to breathe as a silent, dark figure slipped wraithlike from the chaparral and began stealing toward the back of Digger Foss.
”That settles it,” said Foss. ”I'll kill you for that, gems or no gems!
Get ready! If you let down a hand while I'm puttin' up my gun I'll kill you like that!” He snapped the fingers of his left hand.
”I'll stick by my bargain,” Oliver a.s.sured him, his glance struggling between Foss and that silent figure slinking in his rear.
What should he do? There was murder in the black eyes of the man who stole so stealthily upon the gunman's back. Should he shout to Foss? His sense of fair play cried out that he should. But Foss might misinterpret the meaning of his upraised voice, and fire. Should he--
”Here goes! I'm puttin' up my gun. Get ready, kid! When I--”
There was a leap, a flash of steel in the sunlight, a scream of agonizing pain.
Oliver's gun was out and levelled; but Foss was staggering from side to side, his arms limp before him, his head lopped forward as if he searched for something on the ground. He collapsed and lay there gasping hideously in the path, in a growing pool of blood.
The chaparral opened and closed again; and then only Oliver and the man in his death throes were remaining.
Even as Bolivio had died, so died Digger Foss, in a path in the wilderness, with the knife of a Showut Poche-daka in his back.
CHAPTER XXV
THE ANSWER
Two weeks had pa.s.sed since the battle of the Poison Oakers. That organization was now no more. Jessamy's efforts to mobilize a posse to stop the fight had proved fruitless. Only the constable and Damon Tamroy rode back with her with first aid packages, for Halfmoon Flat had voiced its indifference in a single sentence--”Let 'em fight it out!” Those whom the constable would have deputized promptly made themselves scarce.
So the Poison Oakers had fought it out, and in so doing appended ”Finis”
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