Part 2 (2/2)

”H'm--don't know. Don't know,” mused Courtrey. ”I've always thought it could be done. There ought to be a way on th' other side, seems like.”

”Well, _ought_ an' _is_ is two diff'rent things, Buck,” grinned Bullard.

”Sure,” nodded the king, ”sure. An' yet--”

”h.e.l.lo, Buck.”

A soft hand touched Courtrey's shoulder with a subtle caress. He wheeled on the instant, ready, alert. Then he smiled and reaching up, took the hand and held it openly.

”h.e.l.lo, Lola,” he said, ”how goes it?”

The newcomer was a woman, full, rounded, dark, and she was past-master of men--as witness the slow glance that she turned interestedly out over the teeming room, even while the pulse in the wrist in Courtrey's clasp leaped like a racer. She was a perfect specimen of a certain type, beautiful after a resplendent fas.h.i.+on, full of eye and lip, confident, calm. She was brilliantly clad in crimson and black, and rings of value shone on her ivory-like hands.

Lola of the Golden Cloud was known all over Lost Valley. Men who had no women wors.h.i.+pped her--and some who had, also. At the Stronghold at the Valley's head there was a woman who hated her, though she had never set eyes on her--Courtrey's wife.

If Lola knew this she had never mentioned it, wise creature that she was. Proud of her beauty and her power she had reigned at The Golden Cloud in supreme indifference, even to her men themselves, it seemed, though hidden undercurrents ran strong in her. Which way they tended many a reckless buck of Lost Valley would have given much to know, among them Courtrey himself.

Now she pulled her hand away from him and sauntered over to a table where five men sat playing, laid it upon the shoulder of one of them, leaned down and looked at the cards in his hand.

The man, a tall stripling in a silver-studded belt, looked up, flattered.

Courtrey by the bar watched her, still smiling. Then he turned back to Bullard and went on with his conversation.

Over by the wall a man on a raised dais began to tune an ancient fiddle.

Two more women came in from somewhere at the back, a big blooming girl by the name of Sadie, and a small red-head, tragically faded, with soft brown eyes that should never have looked upon Bullard's. Two men rose and took them as the tune, an old-fas.h.i.+oned waltz, began to ripple under the fingers of the fiddler, who was a born musician, and the four swung down between the tables and the bar. The Golden Cloud was in full swing, running free for the night, though the soft twilight was scarcely faded from the beautiful country without.

Slip--step, slip--step--went the dancing feet to the accompaniment of rattling spurs. These men were lithe and active, able to dance with amazing grace in chaps and the full accoutrement of the rider. They even wore their broad brimmed hats.

Why should they not, since none objected?

Bullard, solid, stocky, red-faced, leaned on his bar and watched the busy room with pleased eyes.

He did not hear a voice which called his name, once or twice, among the jumble of sounds. Presently an odd figure came round the end of the bar from a door that opened there into the mysterious back regions of the place and elbowed in to face him.

This was a little old man, weazened and bent, his unkempt head thrust forward from hunched shoulders. He dragged two grain sacks behind him, and he was so grotesquely bow-legged that the first sight of him always provoked laughter. This was old Pete the snow-packer, bound on his nightly trip to the hills. Outside his burros waited, their pack-saddles empty.

By dawn they would come down from the world's rim, the grain sacks bulging with hard-packed snow for the cooling of Bullard's liquor.

”d.i.c.k,” he said when he faced his employer, ”here 'tis time t' start an' there ain't a d.a.m.ned bit o' grub put up fer me! Ef ye don't make that pig-tailed c.h.i.n.k pay 'tention t' my wants, I quit! I quit, I tell ye!”

And he emphasized his vehement protest by whirling the bags over his head and flailing them upon the floor.

A roar of laughter greeted him, which brought dim tears of indignation to his old eyes.

”Ye don't care a d.a.m.n!” he whimpered in impotent rage. ”Jes' 'cause it's me. Ef 'twas yer ol' c.h.i.n.k, now--if 'twas him, th' ol'

he-pigtail, ye'd----”

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