Rand saw the outfit wagon, now — a brown dot on a carpet of green. He could see cattle scattered over the floor of the basin, and horsemen moving about; and he felt the peaceful atmosphere of the scene — the shimmering sunlight over it all, creating a slumberous haze, the beauty of which brought him a pang of regret.
For all this beauty was in sharp contrast to the evil that dwelt in his heart; all this peace and quiet caused him to realize more keenly the turmoil and the tumult that seethed in his veins.
He got down from Midnight and stood, his arms resting on the saddle, his face pale, his eyes closed, his sinewy body slack as though a great weariness had descended upon him. Standing there, he looked like a man who had ridden far and fast to escape some threatening danger — a danger that had almost overwhelmed him, leaving him unnerved, terrorized, and exhausted.
Once again had he conquered the evil passion which, like an inward living flame, scorched and seared him with the intensity of its heat; once again had he kept the fire from consuming him. But in conquering he had been forced to suffer the shame and the obloquy of public insult from a man he hated with a bitterness that sometimes appalled him.
He had not dared to kill Kinney when the latter had stood defenseless before him; he had not dared to direct his bullets at the gunfighter—nor, later in the Gilt Edge had he dared to yield to the malignance of the passions that had gripped him. For though he had gone to town purposely to kill Kinney and Compton, there had flashed into his mind at the last minute the image of his mother's face, pale and concerned, her eyes upon him glowing with cold reproach.
Kinney's conduct had brought the mental picture into Rand's vision. Until he faced Kinney beside the hitching rail he had intended to kill him. For he had reveled in the murder-lust that had seized him. But something in the gunfighter's manner, in the cringing dread that had seemed to afflict him shortly after Rand appeared before him, had suddenly cooled Rand's passions. It had seemed to him that shooting Kinney would have been too much like murder.
For he knew he would beat Kinney when the critical moment came — and he knew that Kinney, after the first glance, also realized it. It had been when the sarcastic smile had begun to appear on Rand's face that the mental picture of his mother flashed before him. And the sarcasm he felt had been directed at himself — it was the savage cynicism of his father sneering at the maternal influences that had conquered him. So, fighting—and losing—the bitter battle, he had merely wounded Kinney.
It had been the same way when he had gone into the Gilt Edge. Thoughts of his mother had influenced him while he had been talking with Webster; but as soon as he stepped into the street a new savage impulse had seized him, and he had determined to kill Compton when he had entered the saloon.
But there, again, had his mother's face appeared before him — he had been looking at her when he had stuck the muzzle of his gun into Compton's side.
He had known, then, that he dared not yield to the violent impulses that had driven him to town — for had he done so the reproach in his mother's eyes would have haunted him all the days of his life. Nor, never again would he have been able to look at the picture of her— the picture that adorned the wall of his room at the Three Bar.
Therefore the mingled emotions of victory and defeat assailed him as he stood on the brow of the hill overlooking the big basin; but they were emotions out of which he could gain no consolation. For when he had faced Compton in the saloon — after he had decided not to use the gun that was making a dent in the man's side — after he had conquered the yearning to kill — he had not dared to knock Compton down, for fear the blow would arouse the blood-lust again and he would yield to it.
He had done then what he thought was the wise thing —he had grimly closed his ears to Compton's insults; he had fled from the temptation to slay.
But now the shame of his decision was upon him; and the bitter curses that issued from between his clenched teeth, the flaming scorn and contempt of self that gleamed in his eyes, told how bitterly he regretted the weakness that had come over him in town.
He climbed into the saddle presently, pale, his jaws set, and his eyes glowing with a brooding, sullen light; sending Midnight slowly down the slope.
And when he reached the floor of the basin he saw that Larry Redfern had not moved very far from where he had stood when Rand had last seen him — he was leaning against the outfit wagon, his back to Rand, apparently not having seen or heard Rand coming toward him.
He turned, though — swiftly — as Rand rode close to him; his right hand dropping to the holster at his hip. On Redfern's face, too, there was a sullen expression — a savage truculence which told of the bitterness of his thoughts.
And his first words revealed what those thoughts had been; for when he flashed around and saw Rand, his face lighted, and he fairly yelled at Rand:
"You old son-of-a-gun! You got him!"
In an instant he was at Rand's side, gripping one of his hands, trying to pull Rand off his horse. And when Rand resisted, pulling back, his face flaming with the shame of the thing that had happened to him, Redfern squeezed the captured hand hard and looked gleefully up into Rand's face.
"You old son-of-a-gun! I never thought you could do it! Tell me about it, you close-mouthed Apache! Tell me how you done it? Don't set there blushin' like a house afire, keepin' me in suspense! Spit it out!"
"Kinney ain't dead," said Rand. "I busted his hand — that's all. I couldn't kill him—he looked too—too easy, I reckon."
"Easy! Oh — why, hell's fire! Easy? Kinney easy?" Redfern's voice grew low and awed; he pushed his hat back and brushed his forehead with a hand, amazed, stunned. "You busted Kinney's hand — an' you say he's easy! Good Lord! I knowed you was slick—but— Kinney!"
Rand grinned without mirth. "I was goin' to kill him," he confessed; "but when I'd knocked his gun out of his hand — snappin' a shot at it when he tried to draw, when my back was turned — an' he stood there, goin' for his other gun, an' lookin' so white an' scared — I didn't have the nerve to kill him. An' later, when I got Compton in the Gilt Edge, I didn't have the nerve to kill him, either. He wouldn't draw his gun. I've sure made a mess of this deal," he concluded bitterly.
"Holy smoke!" breathed Redfern; "no nerve! He goes to town, deliberate — not lettin' me go with him — to meet Slim Kinney — with Kinney waitin' to kill him. He knocks Kinney's gun to smithereens, an' busts Kinney's hand — makin' a tenderfoot sucker out of the slickest gun-fighter in the country. Then he busts into the Gilt Edge — with everything ag'in him, an' scares Link Compton so that he don't know he's got a gun! An' then he comes back here an' yaps disappointed like, because he ain't got no nerve. Hell's fire — what does he call nerve—that's what I'd like to know?"
Redfern asked his questions of the yawning distance, as though that distance were a third person.
But his enthusiasm was answered by a saturnine smile from Rand. He said lowly: "I had to tell you;" wheeled his horse and rode away, toward the Three Bar, leaving Redfern to look after him in puzzled astonishment.
Chapter XV. Swearing to a Lie
RAND'S temperament was not volatile; there was no infirmity of purpose in his moods; and of the two influences which shaped his conduct toward his fellow-men, that exerted by his mother's memory was the stronger. She had trained him, had warned him; and he was dominated by the gentle impulses she had bequeathed him. It was only when he was goaded and provoked by antagonistic forces that the turbulent, maddening passions seized him; and even then he fought grimly to conquer.
Men had seen those passions slumbering in him. Larry Redfern knew of their existence — for in those moments when he and Rand were together, with the gentleness of a trusting friendship between them, Redfern had seen the hard glint far