'Drag' Harlan Part 31

"Woodward," directed Haydon; "hit the breeze after the outfit and tell them to drive those cattle back here!"

Harlan grinned. "Woodward," he said, gently; "you climb on your cayuse an' do as Haydon tells you. Haydon is figurin' on cas.h.i.+n' in when you do."

Haydon bl.u.s.tered. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that if Woodward goes after the boys I'm goin' to blow you apart.

I'm givin' the orders around here!"

Watching Haydon, Harlan saw that he was not exhibiting rage, but intense interest. He was not looking at Harlan, but at Woodward. And, turning swiftly, his guns both leaping into his hands with the movement--for he had a swift suspicion that Woodward might be standing with Haydon against him--he saw that Woodward had fallen into a crouch; that the man's right hand was hovering over his pistol holster, and that his eyes were gleaming with a light that could mean only the one thing--murder.

Backing slowly away from both Haydon and Woodward, Harlan watched them, his guns ready for instant action should he catch any sign that would indicate trickery toward himself.

He saw no such signs. It became plain to him that Woodward had no eyes for anyone but Haydon, and that Haydon's attention was fixed upon Woodward with an intentness that meant he had divined that Woodward's peculiar manner had a definite, personal meaning.

Woodward continued to advance on Haydon. He was waving his left hand as though giving Harlan a silent order to get out of his way, while his gaze was centered upon Haydon with an unspoken promise of violence, fascinating to behold.

It seemed to have fascinated Haydon. Harlan saw him shrink back, the bl.u.s.ter gone out of him, his face the color of ashes. He kept stepping back, until he brought up against the rear wall of the ranchhouse; and there he stood, watching Woodward, his eyes bulging with dread wonder.

Harlan saw his lips move; heard his voice, hoa.r.s.e and throaty:

"It's a frame-up--a frame-up. Both of you are out to get me!"

"Frame-up!"

This was Woodward. He was a sinister figure, with his black beard seeming to bristle with pa.s.sion, his eyes flaming with it; all his muscles tensed and quivering, and his right hand, with clawlike fingers, poised above the b.u.t.t of his pistol.

"Frame-up!" he repeated, laughing hoa.r.s.ely between his teeth. "h.e.l.l's fire! Do you think it takes two men to 'get' you--you miserable whelp?

"I've been waitin' for this day--waitin' for it, waitin' to get you alone--waitin' for the boys to go so's I could tell you somethin'.

"You know what it is. You ain't guessin', eh? Listen while I tell you somethin'. The day 'Drag' Harlan got in Lamo he brought news that Lane Morgan had been killed out in the desert. I heard the boys sayin' you had a hand in it. But I thought that was just talk. I didn't believe you was that kind of a skunk. I waited.

"Then you sent me over to the edge of the level, near the Rancho Seco--where Harlan found that flattened gra.s.s when he rode over here. You told me to watch Harlan and Barbara Morgan. You said you thought Harlan would try some sneak game with her.

"You can gamble I watched. I saw Harlan standin' guard over her; I saw him follow that sneak Lawson. I heard the shot that killed Lawson, an' I saw Harlan tote him downstairs, an' then set on the door-sill all night, guardin' Barbara Morgan.

"The sneakin' game was played by you, Haydon. When I saw Harlan headin'

toward the valley the day he come here, I lit out ahead of him. And when he got to the timber over there I brought him in.

"An' I heard you talk that day. I heard him sayin' that you killed Lane Morgan. He said my dad told him you fired the shot that killed him."

Harlan started and leaned forward, amazed. But Haydon swayed, and then steadied himself with an effort, and stared at Woodward with bulging, incredulous eyes.

"Your _dad_?" he almost shrieked; "Lane Morgan was your father?"

Woodward's grin was wolfish. He took two or three steps toward Haydon--panther-like steps that betrayed the l.u.s.t that was upon him.

"I'm Billy Morgan," he said, his teeth showing in a merciless grin; "Barbara's brother. Flash your gun, Haydon; I'm goin' to kill you!"

Haydon clawed for his pistol, missing the b.u.t.t in his eagerness, and striving wildly to draw it. It snagged on a rawhide thong that supported the holster and his fingers were loosening in the partial grip when Billy Morgan shot him.

He flattened against the wall of the ranchhouse for an instant, staring wildly around him; then his head sagged forward and he slid down the wall of the ranchhouse into the deep dust that was mounded near it.

CHAPTER XXII

A DEAD MAN WALKS

Harlan had paid strict attention to Lane Morgan's words at Sentinel Rock, and he remembered that Morgan had told him that his son, whom he had called "Bill," had left the Rancho Seco on some mission for the governor.

Evidently it had not occurred to Morgan that his son's mission had taken him only to the valley in which reigned those outlaws Morgan had reviled.

But it was plain to Harlan that "Billy" was here--he had said so himself, and he had given proof that he had been watchful and alert to Barbara's interests. And now was explained young Morgan's interest in himself. The thought that during all the days he had spent at the Rancho Seco, his movements had been watched by the man who had just killed Haydon, brought a glow of ironic humor to Harlan's eyes.

During a long interval, through which Billy Morgan stood over Haydon, watching him with a cold savagery, Harlan kept at a respectable distance, also watching.

He saw that for Haydon the incident had been fatal. The man's body did not move after it slipped to the ground beside the ranchhouse wall. Yet Morgan watched until he was certain; then he slowly wheeled and looked at Harlan.

"That settles him--d.a.m.n him!" he said, with a breathlessness that told of the intense strain he had been laboring under.

Still Harlan did not speak; and his guns were in their holsters when Morgan walked close to him, grinning wanly.

"I had to do it. There's no use tryin' to depend on the law in this country. You've seen that, yourself."

"I've noticed it," grinned Harlan. "You're feelin' bad over it. I wouldn't. If it had been my dad he killed I couldn't have done any different. I reckon any man with blood in him would feel that way about a coyote like that killin' his father. If men don't feel that way, why do they drag murderers to courts--where they have courts--an' ask the law to kill them. That's just shovin' the responsibility onto some other guy.

"I've handed several guys their pa.s.s-out checks, an' I ain't regrettin'

one of them. There wasn't one of them that didn't have it comin' to him.

They was lookin' for it, mostly, an' had to have it. I've heard of guys that had killed a man feelin' squeamish over it--with ghosts visitin'

them at night; an' sufferin' a lot of mental torture. I reckon any man would feel that way if he'd killed an inoffensive man--or a good man, or one that hadn't been tryin' to murder him." He grinned again. "Why, I'm preachin'!"

And now into his gaze as he looked at Morgan, came cold reproach.

"You wasn't figurin' to let Barbara play it a lone hand?" he said.

"h.e.l.l's fire--no!" denied Morgan, his eyes blazing. "I've been watchin'

the Rancho Seco--as I told Haydon. I saw Barbara set out for Lamo. There was no one followin' her, an' so I thought she'd be all right. That mixup at Lamo slipped me. But I seen you an' Barbara come back, an' I heard the boys talkin' about what happened at Lamo. I'd heard of you, too; an' when I seen you come back with Barbara I watched you. An' I seen you was square, so I trusted you a heap.

"An' I had a talk with Sheriff Gage about you, an' he told me my dad had sent to Pardo for you, through Dave Hallowell, the marshal of Pardo. Gage said you was out to clean up Deveny an' Haydon, an' so I knowed I could depend on you."

"Barbara don't know you're hangin' around here--she ain't known it?"

"Shucks, I reckon not," grinned Morgan. "I didn't come here for six months after I left the Rancho Seco--until I growed a beard. Barbara's been within a dozen feet of me, an' never knowed me. I've been thinkin'

of telling her, but I seen Haydon was sweet on her, an' I didn't dare tell her. Women ain't reliable. She'd have showed it some way, an' then there'd have been h.e.l.l to pay."

"An' I've been pridin' myself on takin' care of Barbara," said Harlan. "I feel a heap embarra.s.sed an' useless--just like I'd been fooled."