Part 102 (2/2)

A frosty gleam crept into the old Missourian's eye.

”I'll keep hands off,” said he. He strode on twenty feet. ”I got an extra gun--” said he.

”Thanks,” Bob interrupted. ”But I'll get organized better when I get home.”

”Hope you git him,” said the old man by way of farewell. ”He won't git nothing out of me,” he shot back over his shoulder.

Bob now knew exactly where he was going. Reinvigorated by the food, the night's rest, and the cool air of these higher alt.i.tudes, he made good time. By four o'clock of the afternoon he at last hit the broad, dusty thoroughfare over which were hauled the supplies to Baker's upper works.

Along this he swung, hands in pockets, a whistle on his lips, the fine, light dust rising behind his footsteps. The slight down grade released his tired muscles from effort. He was enjoying himself.

Then he came suddenly around a corner plump against a horseman climbing leisurely up the grade. Both stopped.

If Bob had entertained any lingering doubt as to Oldham's complicity in his abduction, the expression on the land agent's face would have removed it. For the first time in public Oldham's countenance expressed a livelier emotion than that of cynical interest. His mouth fell open and his eyegla.s.ses dropped off. He stared at Bob as though that young man had suddenly sprung into visibility from clear atmosphere. Bob surveyed him grimly.

”Delighted to see me, aren't you?” he remarked. A slow anger surged up within him. ”Your little scheme didn't work, did it? Wanted me out of the way, did you? Thought you'd keep me out of court! Well, I'm here, just as I said I'd be here. You can pay your villainous tool or kick him out, as you please. He's failed, and he won't get another chance. You miserable whelp!”

But Oldham had recovered his poise.

”Get out of my way. I don't know what you are talking about. I'll land you in the penitentiary a week after you appear in court. You're warned.”

”Oh, I've been warned for some time. But first I'll land you.”

”Really! How?”

”Right here and now,” said Bob stepping forward.

Oldham reined back his horse, and drew from his side pocket a short, nickel-plated revolver.

”Let me pa.s.s!” he commanded harshly. He presented the weapon, and his gray eyes contracted to pin points.

”Throw that thing away,” said Bob, laying his hand on the other man's bridle. ”_I'm going to give you the very worst licking you ever heard tell of!_”

The young man's muscles were tense with the expectation of a shot. To his vast astonishment, at his last words Oldham turned deadly pale, swayed in the saddle, and the revolver clattered past his stirrup to fall in the dust. With a snarl of contempt at what he erroneously took for a mere physical cowardice, Bob reached for his enemy and dragged him from the saddle.

The chastis.e.m.e.nt was brief, but effective. Bob's anger cooled with the first blow, for Oldham was no match for his younger and more vigorous a.s.sailant. In fact, he hardly offered any resistance. Bob knocked him down, shook him by the collar as a terrier shakes a ground squirrel, and cast him fiercely in the dust. Oldham sat up, his face bleeding slightly, his eyes bewildered with the suddenness of the onslaught. The young man leaned over him, speaking vehemently to rivet his attention.

”Now you listen to me,” said he. ”You leave me alone. If I ever hear any gossip, even, about what you will or will not do to me, I'll know where it started from. The first word I hear from any one anywhere, I'll start for you.”

He looked down for a moment at the disorganized man seated in the thick, white dust that was still floating lazily around him. Then he turned abruptly away and resumed his journey.

x.x.x

For ten seconds Oldham sat as Bob had left him. His hat and eyegla.s.ses were gone, his usually immaculate irongray hair rumpled, his clothes covered with dust. A thin stream of blood crept from beneath his close-clipped moustache. But the most striking result of the encounter, to one who had known the man, was in the convulsed expression of his countenance. A close friend would hardly have recognized him. His lips snarled, his eyes flared, the muscles of his face worked. Ordinarily repressed and inscrutable, this crisis had thrown him so far off his balance that, as often happens, he had fallen to the other extreme.

Sniffling and half-sobbing, like a punished schoolboy, he dragged himself to where his revolver lay forgotten in the dust. Taking as deliberate aim as his condition permitted, he pulled at the trigger. The hammer refused to rise, or the cylinder to revolve. Abandoning the self-c.o.c.king feature of the arm, he tried to c.o.c.k it by hand. The mechanism grated sullenly against the grit from the road. Oldham worked frantically to get the hammer to catch. By the time he had succeeded, his antagonist was out of reach. With a half-scream of baffled rage, he hurled the now useless weapon in the direction of the young man's disappearance. Then, as Oldham stood militant in the dusty road, a change came over him. Little by little the man resumed his old self. A full minute went by. Save for the quicker breathing, a spectator might have thought him sunk in reverie. At the end of that time the old, self-contained, reserved, cynical Oldham stepped from his tracks, and set methodically to repair damages.

First he searched for and found his gla.s.ses, fortunately unbroken. At the nearest streamlet he washed his face, combed his hair, brushed off his clothes. The saddle horse browsed not far away. Finally he walked down the road, picked up the revolver, cleaned it thoroughly of dust, tested it and slipped it into his pocket. Then he resumed his journey, outwardly as self-possessed as ever.

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