Westcott’s state of mind, miserable as it was, would have been more unenviable still had he known that Gard was on the train with him during the journey to Bonesta. The lawyer was hurrying to Sylvania to secure another interview with Kate Hallard in the absence of her champion. He reasoned that she could not yet have heard from Gard, whose quest in the north, he surmised, had something to do with her business.
He was still puzzled to understand why a man like Gard should have prepared such a statement as was contained in the packet which he had found on the desert. In the light of what he himself had just learned, it seemed as if he must have known that it was unnecessary. The paper bore no date, and he finally concluded that it must have been written at some time before Gard had learned of Jim Texas’ confession. Westcott himself had not known of this before going north on this trip. He had been willing to forget the whole business once he was sure that Barker had disappeared forever. Now he was in a white rage at the position in which he found himself.
He had been in too great haste, after learning the facts of Gard’s innocence, to think further of the mining claim. When Mrs. Hallard and Unricht saw him in the St. Augustine he had just come in from the north. He spent no time in Tucson, looking up records which he took for granted Gard had already made right. He was sure that the latter’s first act upon returning to civilization would be to put his own affairs into secure shape. Only in some such way was it possible for a mind like Westcott’s to understand a man’s willingly remaining in a position which must otherwise seem to him perilous, for the sake of seeing right done to a woman like Mrs. Hallard. He realized, too, with a horrible sense of being trapped, that he himself was in Gard’s power.
How that power would be used he felt no doubt. The man was probably only making sure of his ground. He would have his case clear before he struck, and no one knew, better than Ashley Westcott, how clear that case could be made. He had reckoned absolutely upon the loss of that deed, and upon Kate Hallard’s helplessness and ignorance; and the stolen property now stood on record in his own name.
The sweat started upon his forehead as he told over in his mind the motives that would inevitably impel a man in Gard’s position to seek revenge upon him. No wonder the fellow had taken this business up. No wonder he had not been tempted to make a deal with him. Westcott flinched inwardly, as he remembered his own fatuous proposition that morning at the Palo Verde. How Gard must have been laughing at him, behind that grave face. The matter stood out before him in the fierce light of his own hatred; he could conceive of no other feeling actuating his enemy.
Any way he looked at it, the man was bound to be meditating his ruin. Through the whirl of Westcott’s thoughts ran but one slender thread of hope. If he could see Kate Hallard he might effect a compromise with her. When last he saw her he had been sure that he had Gard in his power. He had boasted to her that he meant to crush the fellow; to show her what a helpless creature she had trusted. She had laughed at his threats, but there had been anxiety under her laughter. He had seen that as he departed, exulting. Perhaps he could work that line with her again. He would see; he must see!
If he could not arrange with her there was nothing for him to do but to run for it. He might be able to realize on the property before getting away; a cattleman up north was even then considering its purchase. In any case, Kate Hallard failing him, he must get out of Arizona; get out of the country, even, if Gard’s hatred still pursued him. To stay, after this, spelled jail.
At the word Gard’s face came up before him as it had looked that night in Blue Gulch, and the horror of it set him shivering. Remorse was no part of his emotion; he felt only a sense of impotent regret at the shattering of his plans, and a blind hatred of Gard as the cause of his undoing. He cursed him in his heart as he sat staring out upon the desert landscape slipping past the car window.
Its desolation added to his horror, and his fury. It was a hellish place, working its own infernal way with men whom fate forced to dwell in it; but he had worked, and planned, and striven there; he had seen his dear ambition coming within reach of his hand. Now he saw himself hunted like a jack-rabbit from the scene of all his hopes and desires.
And there was Helen. He believed that he had stood a chance there. And he had meant, once he was out of this snarl, to live straight. With her to help him he could go far. Arizona would be a state some day. There were big possibilities ahead. He writhed in his seat at the thought, and cursed Gabriel Gard anew for plotting his downfall.
The horse that he had ridden to Bonesta several days before had been sent back to Sylvania; so Westcott went up to the outfitting town in the tri-weekly stage which was waiting at the train. This fact enabled Gard the better to keep out of the lawyer’s sight. His own horse was in the Bonesta stable.
He was no more anxious to encounter Westcott than the latter was to meet him. He had seen him at the Tucson station in time to seek another car from the one in which the attorney seated himself, and now he had but to keep out of view until the lumbering stage swung up the road with his foe on board.
Gard had found his man, and had in his pocket Sawyer’s affidavit to having taken the acknowledgment of the Hallard deed. He had learned, too, that this deed ante-dated the one of record to Westcott’s client. This personage, he had ascertained, was a mere tool of the attorney’s. The actual holder of the property was Westcott himself.
He was greatly troubled, on arriving at Sylvania, to find that Mrs. Hallard had gone away. He tortured his mind for an explanation of her sudden journey. He was afraid that she had been again misled by Westcott. If the lawyer really had found that lost packet there was no predicting the uses to which he might put it in making representations to Mrs. Hallard.
Sing Fat could give him no information beyond the fact that Mrs. Hallard had ridden out to the Palo Verde, returning in “one velly big hully-up,” to prepare for a journey to Prescott. He could not tell when she would return.
Gard pondered the matter in sorry perplexity. He could not fathom the mystery, but he feared—everything. He dreaded what might have taken place at the Palo Verde. What had taken Mrs. Hallard there? What had Sandy Larch been told? What did Miss Anderson believe?
The last was the question of his deepest thought. He was not fearful for himself, of anything that might come. The doubts and the temptations of the situation had all been settled in his mind. He had learned stern lessons in solitude, and he brought them sternly to bear in this exigency. This thing had been given to him, Gabriel Gard, to carry through. Whatever might come to him as one human being did not count. It was the life of the world that counted, and to see justice done was just now, for him, a part of that life. If payment seemed to fall upon him, who was he, that he could not bear his burden? Neither his courage nor his purpose faltered before the outlook.
But that Helen Anderson should believe of him the things he was sure that Westcott would try to make her believe, was more than his reason told him need be borne. The mastering desire of his soul at this moment was that she should believe in him; that she should know the truth from his own lips before she judged him. The vague plan that had suggested itself to him on the way up now took definite shape. He resolved to ride out to the Palo Verde; to see Helen if possible, and get her to listen to the whole story. She should believe him, if there was any power in truth to make its impress upon a true nature.
“She is true,” he told himself, recalling her clear, candid eyes, her fine, fearless spirit. “She will believe me. She must believe me. Oh, God, help me make her believe me! It’s all I ask!”
He had no intention of putting his fate to further test. When he should be free; able to hold up his head without shame among men; then the right to speak would be his. Then he would lay his life at her feet. It was hers. But now, he would have given his last drop of blood just to know that she knew, and that she believed him.
He left Mrs. Hallard’s papers, securely sealed, in Sing Fat’s care, seeing them put in a place of safety before he turned away to where he had put up his horse.
The animal was still feeding; for himself Gard had forgotten the need of food. He hesitated, loth to take the creature out.
“Goin’ far?” the stable man asked.
“Out to the Palo Verde,” was the reply.
“Better take one o’ our broncs, then,” the man jerked a thumb in the direction of a flea-bitten roan standing in its stall.
“That un’ll take you out there all right,” he said, “tho’ he ain’t no shucks of a goer.”
“He’ll do,” and the roan was brought out and saddled. A man who had slunk from the stable when Gard came in lingered unseen at the head of the alley to see him ride away.
“Gwan,” he jeered in drunken exultation as horse and rider passed up the street; “go it while ye can; yer time’s a comin’ my fine, pious jail-bird. Here’s where yer wings is goin’ to be clipped sure’s my name’s Thad Broome!”
The cow-puncher had come into town breathing out wrath against Sandy Larch, with whom he had had words. He was foregathering with certain chosen companions, and had already succeeded in getting well on the road to drunkenness. He was headed for Jim Bracton’s with his friends when the quartette met Westcott, fresh from an effort to pump Sing Fat regarding Mrs. Hallard’s whereabouts.
Sing Fat had been non-committal. He knew that the lawyer was not in the good graces of his mistress, and so, being a Chinaman, he had little that was definite to tell him. Westcott was in a white rage when he was hailed by Broome, too drunk now to be discreet.
He answered the cow-puncher’s surprised greeting shortly, but Broome was not to be put off. He was in a condition to attach importance to his own personality, and he followed Westcott, who was walking away from the town, too furious to endure contact with humanity. The puncher’s companions trailed after.
Out beyond the edge of the settlement the lawyer turned, enraged.
“What in hell are you following me for, Broome?” he snapped, savagely.
“Wanter word wi’ you, Misher Weshcott,” the fellow said, thickly.
“What about? Why aren’t you on the range? What are you hanging around here for?” The questions followed one another with a jerk.
Broome burst into a tirade of profanity, the burden of which was that he would take no bossing from Sandy Larch. He had defied the latter and had been given his time.
“So you got yourself fired,” Westcott commented in a slow rage. “You’re an even bigger blasted fool than I thought you could be.”
Broome blustered, drunkenly. Did Westcott think he was going to stand any lip from Sandy Larch when he had a fortune in sight?
“Fortune—hell!” Westcott’s fury broke bounds.
“What you’ve got in sight,” he said, hoarsely, “is an asylum for damned fools; or else a hemp necktie and a short drop. One or the other’s yours all right.”
The cow-puncher stared, stupidly.
“Gwan,” he said, “Whatcher givin’ us? Gard ain’t made no drift; he’s just now gone out to the Palo Verde; I seen ’im.”
Westcott was startled.
“What has he gone out there for?” he demanded.
“How ’n hell do I know,” was the reply. “When we goin’ t’ land ’im?”
“Shut up!” Westcott almost screamed the words in the intensity of his nervous pain. “You can’t touch Gard, you blasted donkey,” he added; “he’s made himself solid with the law. He’s pardoned all right.”
“Pardoned!” Broome’s jaw dropped. “Did he bring away enough fer that in them two bags?” he gasped.
Westcott made no reply and the cow-puncher turned to his fellows.
“Now wha’ d’ye think o’ that?” he roared, “You know this here Gard, Jim. He’s that dod-gasted sawney that butted in when you was teachin’ old Joe Papago the things he most needed to know that night up to the ‘Happy Family.’”
“I guess I know ’im all right, damn ’im,” snarled the one addressed. “He done me out ’n a good thing that time. I stood to win—”
“Done ye! Call that doin’ ye?” Broome snarled. “He done me out ’n more ’n he did you. Thousands o’ dollars he’s robbed me of.”
“Aw, pull ’er in easy Broome,” interrupted one of the others, coming close. “You never had a thousand in yer life.”
“Ye lie! I had my eyes on the richest vein in Arizona, an’ this feller lit on me an’ nearly killed me when he found I’d seen it. He chased me out ’n it!”
“I’d pot any man tried that on me,” the other said. “Where in tunk was yer gun?”
“Where ’t is now,” Broome growled, “an’ that’s none o’ your business. I’ll git ’im yet. He’s a murderer an’ a thief, an’ I’ll git ’im yet.”
“An’ hang for it.” This man spoke for the first time. “He ain’t worth it.”
“Not on your life would I hang fer ’t,” was Broome’s reply. “I tell ye the man’s a murderer an’ a thief anyhow; an’ as fer his bein’ worth it, I tell ye that claim he’s hanging onto’s got a million in plain sight.”
“An’ to think of it,” he went on, dolorously, “that I had my two hands on them bags, an’ hefted ’em, an’ saw their color.”
“Pity you didn’t smell of them while you were about it,” sneered Westcott. “It’s about all the good you’ll ever get of the stuff.”
“Is it, eh,” Broome turned on him in maudlin rage.
“It’s all I’ll ever git with any help o’ your’n,” he raged, “but I kin do a thing er two yet, off ’n my own bat. By God! Just you lemme git my two hands on the feller ’n I’ll twist his windpipe good ’n’ plenty!”
He gasped for breath, tearing at the band of his shirt.
“I’ll kill ’im,” he swore. “D’ye think I’ll let ’im live when he’s took the bread out o’ my mouth like he done?”
Westcott regarded him with narrowed eyes.
“You’d be a blasted fool to stand it,” he said, speaking very low, “any set of men are fools to let another man ride over them; but they’re bigger fools if they don’t keep their mouths shut.”
“That’s so,” one of the men commented. “You fellers wanter look out. This here Gard you’re talkin’ about’s a stranger to me, an’ I d’ know all he’s done, but such talk’s plumb dangerous.”
He shook his head with drunken gravity.
“Wha’d you wanter kill ’im for?” he asked of Broome.
“I tell ye he’s a damned murderer,” was the reply. “He’d oughter be killed.”
“Is that right?” The man who did not know Gard turned to Westcott with a profoundly judicial air.
“Why ain’t he hung then?” he went on. “How d’you know he’s guilty?”
Westcott hesitated, considering. He did not look at the questioner.
“I saw the whole story written out in his own hand,” he finally said, with a curious glitter in his half-veiled eyes. “I’ve just been up north trying to have him arrested,” he continued. “Broome here knows that; but I found the matter’d been patched up.”
“Hell! That ain’t no ways right.” The speaker steadied himself, and regarded the lawyer severely.
“They ain’t no justice in that,” he resumed. “Murder’s murder; an’ the punishment for murder’s hanging. I d’mand t’ know why he ain’t hung?”
“You’ll have to answer your own question,” was the quiet reply. “What are you going to do about that?”
“I know what I’d do about it,” Broome spoke this time. “I’d hang ’im myself, quick’s that,” snapping his fingers, “if I got the chance.”
“Lynching’s gone out of style,” sneered Westcott. “We’re law-abiding in Arizona now.”
“Law be damned,” Broome blustered. “Lynching’s too good fer ’im; but it’d serve, I guess.”
The word passed from one to another of the drunken group. The men looked at one another, and fell into a confused discussion.
“Did you say you saw that there confession in his own handwrite?” the stranger presently turned to ask of Westcott, but the lawyer had already hurried away.
“Don’t you worry none about that,” Broome answered for him, with an oath. “I tell ye, Hickey, I know what I’m talkin’ about. The man’s an escaped jail-bird that was in fer murder. He’s dodged the law, but hell! he ain’t dodged Thad Broome yet!”
The talk went on among the men, but Westcott was not there to hear it. He had seen to it that he should not be, and was well on his way back to town.
He had not put the idea into their heads, he told himself. Nor was it likely that anything would come of their drunken vaporings.
But if anything should—His heart was beating excitedly, and his breath came quick as the possibilities of the situation hammered at his brain.
“Curse the fellow,” he muttered. “The very devil himself is always sending him my way. Well, whatever happens to him this trip he’s brought it upon himself.”
He walked on, his thoughts growing more definite.
“Nothing can be proved against me,” they ran. “I can’t be supposed to know what a lot of drunken punchers are likely to do. The fool ought to have been careful how he interfered with them.
“Still, if anything should happen,” caution suggested, “I may as well be away from here.”
He glanced at his watch.
“Too late for the afternoon train,” he reflected. “But there’s the mixed freight at nine-thirty. I might ride over to the junction and get Billy Norton to stop that for me. I’ll do that. Plenty of time after supper. Yes: that is what I will do.”
He did not continue his walk, but sought the little hotel and shut himself into his room, explaining to the friendly proprietor that he was dead tired, and wanted to make up lost sleep.