The man’s whole manner was one of good-humored indifference. There was an unruffled assurance about him that was quite perfect, if studied. Scipio’s presence there seemed the last thing of concern to him. And the effect of his manner on his visitor entirely upset all the latter’s preconceived intentions. Astonishment was his first feeling. Then a sudden diffidence seized him, a diffidence that was nearly akin to fear of his rival. But this passed in a moment, and was instantly replaced by a hot rush of blood through his small body. All his pictured interview died out of his recollections, and, in place of that calmness with which he had intended to meet the man, he found his pulses hammering and hot anger mounting to his head. The commonest of human passions stirred in him, and he felt it would be good to hurt this man who had so wronged him.
“Where’s my wife?” he demanded, with a sudden fierceness.
“Oh–it’s that. Say, come right in?”
James was still smiling pleasantly. This time Scipio accepted the invitation without thought of trap or anything else. He almost precipitated himself into the room.
Nor in his fury did he observe his surroundings. He had no eyes for the furnishings, the cheap comfort with which he was surrounded. And though, as James had said, the place was untidy, he saw nothing and none of it. His eyes were on the man; angry, bloodshot eyes, such eyes as those of a furiously goaded dog, driven into a corner by the cruel lash of a bully’s whip.
“Yes, that’s it. Wher’s my wife?” Scipio demanded threateningly. “You’ve stole her, and taken her from me. I’ve come to take her back.”
The force of his demands was tinged with the simplicity of a naturally gentle disposition. And maybe, in consequence, something of their sting was lost. The forceful bluster of an outraged man, determined upon enforcing his demands, would probably have stirred James to active protest, but, as it was, he only continued to smile his insolence upon one whom he regarded as little better than a harmless worm.
“One moment,” he said, with an exasperating patience, “you say I stole her. To have stolen her suggests that she was not willing to come along. She came with me. Well, I guess she came because she fancied it. You say you’re going to take her back. Well,” with a shrug, “I kind of think she’ll have something to say about going back.”
For a moment Scipio stood aghast. He glanced about him helplessly. Then, in a flash, his pale-blue eyes came back to the other’s face.
“She’s mine, I tell you! Mine! Mine! Mine!” he cried, in a frenzy of rage and despair. “She’s mine by the laws of God an’ man. She’s mine by the love that has brought our kiddies into the world. Do you hear? She’s mine by every tie that can hold man and wife together. An’ you’ve stole her. She’s all I’ve got. She’s all I want. She’s just part of me, and I can’t live without her. Ther’s the kiddies to home waitin’ for her, and she’s theirs, same as they are hers–and mine. I tell you, you ain’t going to keep her. She’s got to come back.” He drew a deep breath to choke down his fury. “Say,” he went on, with a sudden moderating of his tone and his manner, taking on a pitiful pleading, “do you think you love her? You? Do you think you know what love is? You don’t. You can’t. You can’t love her same as I do. I love her honest. I love her so I want to work for her till I drop. I love her so there’s nothin’ on earth I wouldn’t do for her. My life is hers. All that’s me is hers. I ain’t got a thought without her. Man, you don’t know what it is to love my Jessie. You can’t, ’cos your love’s not honest. You’ve taken her same as you’d take any woman for your pleasure. If I was dead, would you marry her? No, never, never, never. She’s a pastime to you, and when you’ve done with her you’d turn her right out on this prairie to herd with the cattle, if ther’ wasn’t anywher’ else for her to go.” Then his voice suddenly rose and his fury supervened again. “God!” he cried fiercely. “Give me back my wife. You’re a thief. Give her back to me, I say. She’s mine, d’you understand–mine!”
Not for an instant did the smile on James’ face relax. Maybe it became more set, and his lips, perhaps, tightened, but the smile was there, hard, unyielding in its very setness. And when Scipio’s appeal came to an end he spoke with an underlying harshness that did not carry its way to the little man’s distracted brain.
“She wouldn’t go back to you, even if I let her–which I won’t,” he said coldly.
The man’s words seemed to bite right into the heart of his hearer. Nothing could have been better calculated to goad him to extremity. In one short, harsh sentence he had dashed every hope that the other possessed. And with a rush the stricken man leapt at denial, which was heartrending in its impotence.
“You lie!” he shouted. The old revolver was dragged from his pocket and pointed shakingly at his tormentor’s head. “Give her back to me! Give her back, or–”
James’ desperate courage never deserted him for an instant. And Scipio was never allowed to complete his sentence. The other’s hand suddenly reached out, and the pistol was twisted from his shaking grasp with as little apparent effort as though he had been a small child.
Scipio stared helpless and confused while James eyed the pattern of the gun. Then he heard the man’s contemptuous laugh and saw him pull the trigger. The hammer refused to move. It was so rusted that the weapon was quite useless. For a moment the desperado’s eyes sought the pale face of his would-be slayer. A devilish smile lurked in their depths. Then he held out the pistol for the other to take, while his whole manner underwent a hideous change.
“Here, take it, you wretched worm,” he cried, with sudden savagery. “Take it, you miserable fool,” he added, as Scipio remained unheeding. “It wouldn’t blow even your fool brains out. Take it!” he reiterated, with a command the other could no longer resist. “And now get out of here,” he went on mercilessly, as Scipio’s hand closed over the wretched weapon, “or I’ll hand you over to the boys. They’ll show you less mercy than I do. They’re waiting out there,” he cried, pointing at the door, “for my orders. One word from me and they’ll cut the liver out of you with rawhides, and Abe Conroy’ll see it’s done right. Get you right out of here, and if ever you come squealing around my quarters again I’ll have you strung up by your wretched neck till you’re dead–dead as a crushed worm–dead as is your wife, Jessie, to you from now out. Get out of here, you straw-headed sucker, get right out, quick!”
But the tide of the man’s fury seemed to utterly pass the little man by. He made no attempt to obey. The pistol hung in his tightly gripping hand, and his underlip protruded obstinately.
“She’s mine, you thief!” he cried. “Give her back to me.”
It was the cry of a beaten man whose spirit is unquenchable.
But James had finished. All that was worst in him was uppermost now. With eyes blazing he stepped to the door and whistled. He might have been whistling up his dogs. Perhaps those who responded were his dogs. Three men came in, and the foremost of them was Abe Conroy.
“Here,” cried James, his cruel eyes snapping, “take him out and set him on his horse, and send him racing to hell after m’squitoes. And don’t handle him too easy.”
What happened to him after that Scipio never fully understood. He had a vague memory of being seized and buffeted and kicked into a state of semi-unconsciousness. Nor did he rouse out of his stupor, until, sick and sore in every limb, his poor yellow head aching and confused, he found himself swaying dangerously about in the saddle, with Gipsy, racing like a mad thing, under his helpless legs.
CHAPTER VI
SUNNY OAK PROTESTS
Wild Bill was gazing out across the camp dumps. His expression suggested the contemplation of a problem of life and death, and a personal one at that. Sandy Joyce, too, bore traces suggestive of the weightiest moments of his life. Toby Jenks stood chewing the dirty flesh of a stubby forefinger, while the inevitable smile on Sunny Oak’s face made one think of a