'Drag' Harlan Part 37

"You and Haydon were--what do you mean?" she asked, her heart seeming to be a dead weight in her breast, heavy with suspicion over the dread significance in his voice and words. She watched him, breathlessly.

"I'm meaning that Haydon and me were running things in the valley--that we were partners, splitting equal. But I'm playing a lone hand now."

He seemed to enjoy her astonishment--the light in her eyes which showed that comprehension, freighted with hopelessness, was stealing over her.

He grinned hugely as he watched her face.

"Haydon is the guy we called 'Chief,'" he said, enjoying her further amazement and noting the sudden paleness that swept over her face. "He's the guy who killed your father at Sentinel Rock. He was after you, meaning to make a fool of you. Hurts--does it?" he jeered, when he saw her eyes glow with a rage that he could understand. "I've heard of that chain deal--Haydon was telling me. When he shot your father he lost a bit of chain. Harlan found it and gave it back to him, with you looking on. I reckon that's why him and Harlan hit it off together so well--Harlan knowing he killed your father and not telling you about it."

The long shudder that shook the girl betrayed something of the terrible emotion under which she was laboring; and when she finally opened her eyes to gaze again into Deveny's, they were filled with a haunting hopelessness--a complete surrender to the sinister circ.u.mstances which seemed to have surrounded her from the beginning.

"Harlan," she said weakly, as though upon him she had pinned her last hope; "Harlan has joined you after all--he is against me--too?"

"Him and Haydon are after the Rancho Seco. Harlan's been playing with Haydon right along."

Barbara said nothing more. She was incapable of coherent thought or of definite action--or even of knowledge of her surroundings.

For it seemed to her that Deveny had spoken truthfully. She had seen the incident of the broken chain; she had seen Harlan's hypocritical grin upon that occasion--how he had seemed to be eager to ingratiate himself with Haydon.

All were against her--everybody. Everybody, it seemed, but Red Linton.

And they had killed Linton.

She seemed to be drifting off into a place which was peopled with demons that schemed and planned for her honor and her life; and not one of them who planned and schemed against her gave the slightest indication of mercy or manliness. The world became chaotic with swirling objects--then a blank, aching void into which she drifted, feeling nothing, seeing nothing.

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE ULTIMATE TREACHERY

When Barbara regained consciousness she was lying in some long, dusty gra.s.s beside the trail where she seemed to have been thrown, or where she had fallen. For she was lying on her right side, her right arm doubled under her, and she felt a pain in her shoulder which must have been where she had struck when she had fallen.

She twisted around and sat up, bewildered, almost succ.u.mbing to the hideous terror which instantly gripped her when she remembered what had happened.

Deveny's horse stood near her, nipping the tips of the gra.s.s that grew at her feet. Beyond the animal--a little to her right, and perhaps fifty feet from her--were other horses, with riders.

As she staggered to her feet she recognized the men who had been with Deveny. They were on their horses--all facing away from her. Facing Deveny's men were all the T Down boys--she recognized them instantly.

Pistols glittered in their hands; they seemed to be in the grip of some strong pa.s.sion, which wreathed their faces into grim, bitter lines.

Near the T Down men--flanking them--were other men. Among them she saw faces she knew--Colver, Strom Rogers, and others.

There must have been twenty-five or thirty men, altogether, and they were all on a little level beside the trail. It seemed to Barbara that they all appeared to have forgotten her; seemed not to know that she was in the vicinity.

She saw Deveny standing on the little level. His profile was toward her; there was a wild, savage glare in his eyes.

Not more than a dozen feet from him was Harlan.

She saw Harlan's face from the side also. There was a grin on his lips--bitter, mirthless, terrible.

She stood for what seemed to her a long time, watching all of them; her heart throbbing with a dread heaviness that threatened to choke her; her body in a state of icy paralysis.

She thought she knew what had happened, for it seemed to her that everything in the world--all the pa.s.sions and the desires of men--centered upon her. She felt that there were two factions--one headed by Deveny, and the other by Harlan, representing Haydon--and that they were about to fight for her. The T Down men seemed to be standing with Harlan--as, of course, they would, since he had sent for them to come to the Rancho Seco.

Oddly, though, they apparently seemed to pay no attention to her; not one of them looked at her.

If they were to fight it made no difference to her which faction won, for her fate would be the same, if she stayed.

She did not know what put the thought into her mind, but as she stood there watching the men she repeated mentally over and over the words: "If I stay."

Why should she stay? She answered the question by stealing toward Deveny's horse. When she reached the animal she paused, glancing apprehensively at the men, her breathing suspended--hoping, dreading, her nerves and muscles taut. It seemed they must see her.

Not a man moved as she climbed upon the back of the horse; it seemed to her as she urged the animal gently and slowly away from the men that they heard nothing and saw nothing but Harlan and Deveny, and that Harlan and Deveny saw nothing but each other.

She sent the horse away, walking him for a dozen yards or more, until he crossed the little level and sank into a shallow depression in the trail.

Still looking back, she saw that none of the men had changed position--that they seemed to be more intent upon Harlan and Deveny. And she could hear Harlan's voice, now, low, husky.

She urged the horse into a lope; and when she had ridden perhaps a hundred yards, the conviction that she would escape grew strong in her.

Once out of the valley she would ride straight to Lamo, to ask Sheriff Gage to protect her.

She rode faster as she widened the distance that separated her from the men; and soon the horse was covering the trail rapidly; and she leaned forward in the saddle, praying that the men might not see her.

She had gone several miles when she noticed a dark object beside the trail ahead of her. She drew the horse down and approached the spot cautiously. And when she saw that the object was a man, her thoughts flew to the shot she had heard, and to Deveny's words:

"Make sure of it."

It _was_ Linton, she saw, as she halted the horse near the object she had seen. He was lying on his right side, resting his weight on an elbow, as though trying to rise.

In an instant she was out of the saddle and at his side, raising his head.

He looked at her, smiled, and said weakly:

"You got away, eh? I reckon they met Harlan. I was hopin' they would. Did they?"

"Yes," she answered quickly. She had seen that Linton was badly wounded, and she knew that she must give up hope of getting to Lamo in order to give him the care he needed.

So without speaking further, though with an effort that required the last ounce of her strength, she lifted Linton, he helping a little, and led him toward her horse. Somehow, with Linton doing all he could, she got him into the saddle, climbed up behind him, and sent the horse toward the Rancho Seco.

Back at the little level where the men were grouped there was a tension that seemed to charge the atmosphere with tragedy. Deveny's men sat silent in their saddles, watching their leader and Harlan with sullen, savage eyes. The T Down men, facing them, were equally sullen. Guns in hand, they alertly watched the men who were with Deveny, plainly determined that there should be no interference from them in the tragedy that seemed imminent.

Rogers and his men, and the riders who had come with Colver, were also watching the Deveny group. All of these held weapons, too; and Rogers, who had dismounted, was standing beside his horse, a rifle resting on the saddle seat, his cheek snuggling the stock, the muzzle trained on Deveny.

Harlan, Rogers, and the others, racing down the valley, had met Deveny and his men coming up. And when Deveny had recognized Harlan and the others he had quickly dismounted, bearing his unconscious burden. Because he felt that trouble would result from the meeting, Deveny had thrown Barbara from him.

He had instantly forgotten the girl. For when Harlan came up Deveny saw a gleam in his eyes that sent his brain to throbbing with those unmistakable impulses of fear which had seized him the day, in Lamo, when Harlan had faced him.

There had been a moment of silence when the two groups met; a stiffening of muscles and the heavy, strained breathing that, in men, tells of mental preparation for violence, swift and deadly.