"Conscience, eh?" he said. "I was wonderin' if you had any. It's the first time you've showed it." He grinned crookedly. "I reckon you're fussed up about that outlaw horse Mellert sold me — Midnight. Recollect him, eh? Well, when I bought Midnight from Mellert I clean forgot to get a bill of sale for him. I'm takin' it now!"
Seddon gulped and cleared his throat before he could speak. He feared Rand, but he also feared Link Compton's wrath.
"Mellert sold him to you," he said; "it's up to Mellert to fix up a receipt for the money you paid him."
Rand's eyes narrowed to glittering pin points; lie grinned felinely and lowered his hands, so that the fingers brushed the butts of his pistols. And his voice came sharply, viciously:
"I'm wantin' that bill of sale right now. You an' me are goin' to conclude a business deal accordin' to fair an' square rules. You're precedin' me to your office, where you're intendin' to scribble some on a billhead. You're goin' to show a heap of speed. An' if you do any yappin' in the office, to get your daughter in there before you do your scribblin', the mourners will be on the job, pronto. Mosej' along, you polecat!"
For an instant Seddon hesitated. Then he turned, and without a word began to walk toward the ranchhouse, Rand close behind him.
Convinced of the utter futility of resistance, Seddon did not hesitate when he reached the office — which was entered through a door that opened from the front porch. Inside, he sat at a little, flat-topped desk and wrote:
Received from Beaudry Rand one hundred and twenty-five dollars as payment in full for a black outlaw horse, named Midnight.
Rand was standing over him as he wrote, directing him.
"Now date it," ordered Rand. "Make it the 25th of March. That's the day I paid Mellert the money. An' now," he added as he folded the paper and stuck it in a pocket, "I reckon that squares us — on that deal."
He looked at Seddon with a mirthless smile, which had in it a quality of irony that made Seddon look at him in wonder. And while Seddon watched him he drew a chair near the desk, dropped into it, and leaned back, as though he intended to remain there indefinitely.
Seddon continued to look at him, amazed at this strange proceeding; for it seemed to Seddon that were he in Rand's place he would have departed — for obviously, he had received what he had come for.
But it seemed that Rand had no intention of going. At least not for a while; for he leaned back lazily, pretending to look out of one of the windows — though Seddon knew the gleaming eyes were watching him covertly, to forestall any attempt he might make to recover the paper.
For a quarter of an hour Seddon sat, almost consumed with curiosity, watching Rand. Still Rand did not move, nor did he speak. The silence grew unbearable to Seddon; for he knew that back of Rand's continuing presence in the office was a reason — he would not sit there, with his pretense and his silence, unless he meditated some other surprising action.
Seddon grew restless and impatient and wrathful. But Rand continued to sit there, silent and motionless.
And at last Seddon could stand the suspense no longer.
"Why in hell don't you get out of here?" he blurted. "You've got what you come for!"
Rand turned then, looking at Seddon, his eyes glinting with a mocking light that made Seddon yearn to draw his gun. And yet he knew he dared not draw the weapon; for though there was mockery in Rand's eyes, there was also a malicious devil in them, carrying a warning to Seddon.
"You been readin' my mind while you've been settin' there, Seddon?" he inquired gently. "Well, I've been wonderin' if you was. For I've been thinkin' a heap — an' none of my thoughts was complimentin' you any." He grinned, and Seddon cringed into his chair. "If you didn't quite ketch everything I was thinkin' about, I'll help you out a little. It sure was interestin' — to me."
"First, I was just settin' here, waitin' for it to get time for your daughter to get up — I ain't eager to spoil her sleep none."
"What you wantin' my daughter for?" demanded Seddon, a great fear gripping him — a fear that Rand wanted Eleanor for the purpose of telling her about the boy — his boy.
"Well," grinned Rand, "my thoughts was a lot jumbled— that's a fact! So you didn't read them right? They was like a herd of cattle millin' around, gettin' ready to stampede. There didn't seem to be no sense or logic to them. But one thing was stickin' out plain in them — an' I couldn't lose it. It was this: You lied about me to your daughter!"
"That's a heap disconcertin', ain't it?" he added as Seddon started and gripped the arms of his chair. "It was disconcertin' to me, too — when she begun tellin' me what you said. You made it strong, didn't you? You told her I was an outlaw — that I run my brand on other folks' cattle an' horses; an' that I robbed the stage; an' so forth, an' so on, with all the variations. An' all the time you knowed you was a damned liar, an' that you was poisonin' her mind against me. What for? That's what I'm intendin' to find out!"
He looked keenly at Seddon during the silence that followed his words. And he saw Seddon writhe and squirm in his chair and glare murder at him.
"I reckon it was because you was scared I'd go to gassin' to her about the boy," he went on when Seddon did not answer. "Well, you needn't worry about that — I wouldn't want any girl to know that her dad had been such a skunk!"
"I had other thoughts, too — an' some of them was some prominent.' One of the big ones — that kept stickin' its head up, was that you ought to tell her you'd made a mistake about me — that you'd sized me up wrong. I ain't carin' how you do it. But we've got lots of time, an' you can get your thinkin' cap on while we're waitin' for your daughter to get up. She'll be up in an hour or so, I reckon. It's five o'clock now."
"An' while you're thinkin' of that, you can think of somethin' else, too," he went on, grinning coldly. "You can consider how nice an' comfortable you've got it here — in the ranchhouse — an' how it's too nice an' homey here for a man to be runnin' around the country — especially today. You can decide that you won't do any ridin' today — that you won't join the outfit, an' that if any man of the outfit comes you won't be able to see him — you'll be sick or somethin'. You'll find the excuse.
"An' you won't go to Ocate today, nor send no messenger— for fear Link Compton an' the sheriff an' that gunfighter they've got in town waitin' for me, will know that I've got a bill of sale for Midnight. You won't do anything that will let them know, for if you do I'll ram both my guns into your waistband and blow you so far into hell that the devil an' his imps would spend a thousand years lookin' for you!"
He leaned forward in his chair, his eyes gleaming with a cold ferocity that made Seddon shiver.
"You understand me?" demanded Rand when Seddon did not speak.
Seddon nodded.
"Then we'll do our waitin'."
Rand settled back into his seat again, while Seddon, his face crimson with a futile rage, gripped the arms of his chair and watched him.
A clock in the office ticking monotonously, made the only sound in the tense, brooding silence of the room. A half-hour dragged by — three-quarters. And then Seddon fidgeted and glared venomously at Rand, silent, imperturbable, his face expressionless.
Seddon writhed and squirmed in his chair. The inexorable will of the other man was compelling him to do a thing his soul revolted from. But he knew he would do it— for there was no other way. He had seen the implacable determination in Rand's eyes; he saw it even now in Rand's apparently unconcerned attitude. For Rand's attitude advertised that he knew Seddon would do as he said — that he had no doubt of it.
Seddon had always feared Rand — feared him as much as he hated him. And he knew that Rand could shoot to kill if he wanted to; that he had exercised forbearance in the clashes he had had with