'Drag' Harlan Part 35

His eyes were bulging as he rode; his lips were slavering, and he shuddered and cringed as he leaned over his horse's mane, urging him to greater effort--even though there were times when his lurches almost threw him out of the saddle.

For his previous terror had been somewhat tempered with a doubt of Morgan's veracity. Even when he had seen Morgan reaching for his pistol he had felt the doubt--had felt that Morgan was not Morgan at all, but Woodward, perpetrating a grotesque joke. To be sure, when he had seen that Morgan really intended to kill him, he had been convinced that the man was in deadly earnest. It had been then that he had desperately twisted himself so that Morgan's bullet had not touched a vital spot.

But now his terror had grown; it was a thing that had got into his soul--for he had had time to meditate over what Morgan's vengeance meant to him.

It meant that Morgan would kill him, if he caught him; that the life he treasured would be taken from him; that the magnificent body which he had always so greatly admired would be shattered and broken. The mental picture he drew further increased his terror, and he began to mutter incoherent blasphemies as he raced his horse at a breakneck pace toward the Cache.

But when he had ridden several miles and knew from the appearance of the valley that he was nearing the Cache and that he would reach it in safety, there came a change in him.

He grew calmer; he began to feel a rage that sent the blood racing through his veins again. He looked back over the trail as often as formerly, but it was with a new expression--malevolent hatred. And when he finally reached the entrance to the Cache and rode through it, heading toward the building in which, he expected, he would find Deveny, the malevolence in his expression was mingled with triumph and cunning.

CHAPTER XXVII

A DUAL TRAGEDY

Harlan and Morgan had made a thorough search of Haydon's desk in the latter's office in the ranchhouse, and they had found letters addressed to Haydon--received at various towns in the vicinity and proving Morgan's charges against him. And upon several of the letters were names that provided damaging evidence of the connection of influential men with the scheme to gain unlawful possession of much land in the basin.

"This cinches it!" declared Morgan as he carefully placed the letters into a pocket when he and Harlan emerged from the ranchhouse. "I reckon we've got proof now. An' the governor'll be plumb tickled."

They stepped down from the doorway and turned the corner of the house.

Instantly they noted the disappearance of Haydon's body. But they did not search among the other buildings for Haydon--as he had expected them to do. For they saw that his horse was also missing.

Morgan ran for the corral, saying no word, his lips set in grim, vengeful lines. He had been a fool for not making sure that he had killed Haydon, but he would not make that mistake again. The gleam in his eyes revealed that.

Harlan, too, divined what had happened. Purgatory was in the stable--which was farther from the ranchhouse than the corral. And though Harlan moved swiftly Morgan was already on his horse and racing toward the timber when Purgatory emerged from the stable, saddled and bridled.

Harlan noted that Morgan had not stopped to saddle his horse, and that omission revealed the man's intense desire for haste. Harlan, however, headed Purgatory into the timber, but he was more than half a mile behind Morgan when he reached the main trail.

He saw Morgan riding the trail that led up the valley, and he set out after him, giving the big black horse the rein. He divined that Morgan suspected Haydon had ridden in that direction; and while Harlan had never seen the Cache, he had heard the Star men speak of it, and he had noticed that when setting out for it they had always traveled the trail Morgan was traveling. Therefore, it was evident that Morgan thought Haydon had gone to the Cache. In that case he depended upon Deveny to a.s.sist him--if Morgan followed; and Harlan was determined to see the incident through.

He sent Purgatory ahead at a good pace, but he noted soon that Morgan was increasing the distance between them. He began to urge Purgatory forward, and gradually the distance between the two riders grew shorter.

Both were traveling rapidly, however, and it seemed to Harlan that they had not gone more than three or four miles when--watching Morgan closely, he saw him ride pell-mell into some timber that--apparently--fringed the front of a cave.

It was some time before Harlan reached the timber, and when he did he could not immediately discover the spot into which Morgan had ridden.

When he did discover it he rode Purgatory through, and found himself in a narrow gorge.

He raced Purgatory through the gorge, and out of it to the sloping side of a little basin.

He saw a house near the center of the basin--and Morgan riding close to it.

The distance to the house was not great--not more than a quarter of a mile, it seemed; and Harlan felt some wonder that Morgan--who had been quite a little in advance of him--had not reached the house sooner. That mystery was explained to him almost instantly, though, when he saw that Morgan's horse was walking, going forward with a p.r.o.nounced limp.

Evidently Morgan had met with an accident.

Harlan was riding across the floor of the little basin, watching Morgan and wondering at the seeming absence of Deveny's men, when he saw a smoke streak issue from one of the windows of the house, saw Morgan reel in the saddle, and slide to the ground.

But before Harlan could reach the spot where Morgan had fallen, the man staggered to his feet and was running toward the house, swaying as he went.

Harlan heard a m.u.f.fled report as he sent Purgatory scampering after Morgan. He saw Morgan reel again, and he knew someone in the house was using a rifle.

There was another report as Morgan lurched through an open doorway of the house. Then Harlan knew Morgan was using his gun, for its roaring crash mingled with the whiplike crack of a rifle.

The firing had ceased when Harlan slipped off Purgatory at the open door; and both his guns were out as he leaped over the threshold.

He halted, though, standing rigid, his guns slowly swagging in his hands, their muzzles drooping.

For on the floor of the room--flat on his back near a corner--was Haydon.

He was dead--there was no doubt of that.

Nor was there any doubt that the bullets Haydon had sent had finished Morgan. He was lying on his right side, his right arm under him, extended; the palm of the hand upward, the fingers limply holding the pistol he had used, some smoke curling lazily from the muzzle.

Harlan knelt beside Morgan, examining him for signs of life. He got up a little later and stood for some time looking down at the man, thinking of Barbara. Twice had tragedy cast its sinister shadow over her.

CHAPTER XXVIII

CONVERGING TRAILS

An hour or so later, Harlan, having finished his labors in a clearing at the edge of the level near the gorge, climbed slowly on Purgatory and sent him back down the valley trail toward the Star.

From the first his sympathies for Barbara had been deep, beginning on the evening Lane Morgan had mentioned her in his presence--when the man seemed to see her in that strange, awesome moment before his death--when he had seemed to hold out his arms to her. Later, at Lamo, when Harlan had held the girl in his arms, he felt that at that instant he must have experienced much the same protective impulse that Morgan would have felt, had the experience occurred to him. Harlan had been slightly cynical until that minute; but since then he had known that his rage against the outlaws was deeply personal.

That rage, though, had centered most heavily upon Deveny. He had hated Haydon, too--from the first. In the beginning it had been a jealous hatred, aroused over the conviction that Barbara loved the man. But later--when he had discovered that Haydon was the mysterious "Chief,"

that he was the real murderer of Lane Morgan, and that behind his professed love for the girl was meditated trickery--his hatred had become a pa.s.sion in which Barbara did not figure.

His hatred for Haydon, though, could not be compared with the pa.s.sionate contempt and loathing he felt for Deveny. The man had attempted, in Lamo, a thing that Harlan had always abhorred, and the memory of that time was still vivid in Harlan's brain.

Into Harlan's heart as he rode toward the Star flamed that ancient loathing, paling his face and bringing a gleam to his eyes that had been in them often of late--a l.u.s.t for the lives of the men whose evil deeds and sinister influence had kept Barbara a virtual prisoner at the Rancho Seco.

He rode the valley trail slowly, his thoughts upon Barbara, his lips straightening when he thought of how he would have to return to the Rancho Seco, some day, to tell her of her brother's death. Twice had tragedy visited her, and again he would be the messenger to bring her the grim news.

When he reached the Star he rode up to the corral fence and dismounted.

He stood for a long time at the fence, his elbows on one of the rails, his thoughts dwelling upon Barbara. Pity for her whitened his face, set his lips in rigid lines.

She had been in danger, but it seemed to him that it would soon be over.

For Haydon would bother the girl no more, and as soon as he could meet Deveny he would remove another menace to Barbara's life and happiness.

He had no regrets for the men he had killed; they deserved what he had given them. As he had told Morgan, he had considered himself merely an instrument of the law of right and justice--which law was based upon the very principle that governed men in civilized communities.

He was facing south, and he raised his head after a few minutes, for upon the slight breeze was borne to him the rapid drumming of hoofs. As he looked up he saw, far out toward the southern edge of the valley, a dust cloud, moving swiftly toward him.

At first he suspected that the men in the group belonged to Deveny, and he drew out his pistols, one after the other, and examined them--for he decided--if Deveny was among the men--to settle for good the question of power and authority that Haydon had raised.