“I been telling you she was better’n two common men. She was. Which means she was equal to about ten ordinary girls. There’s still a legend about how beautiful Joan Piotto was—tall and straight and big black eyes and terrible handy with her gun. She could ride anything that walked and she didn’t know what fear meant.
“These two kids seen her. One of ’em was William Drew; one of ’em was John Bard.”
He turned to Anthony and saw that the latter was stern of face. He had surely scored his point.
“Same name as yours, eh?” he asked, to explain his turning.
“It’s a common enough name,” murmured Bard.
“Well, them two had come out to be partners, and there they was, fallin’ in love with the same girl. So when they got free they put their heads together—bein’ uncommon wise kids—and figured it out this way. Neither of ’em had a chance workin’ alone to get Joan way from her father’s gang, but workin’ together they might have a ghost of a show. So they decided to stay on the trail of Piotto till they got Joan. Then they’d give her a choice between the two of ’em and the one that lost would simply back off the boards.
“They done what they agreed. For six months they stuck on the trail of old Piotto and never got in hailin’ distance of him. Then they come on the gang while they were restin’ up in the house of a squatter.
“That was a pretty night. Drew and Bard went through that gang. It sounds like a nice fairy-story, all right, but I know old fellers who’ll swear it’s true. They killed three of the men with their guns; they knifed another one, an’ they killed Riley with their bare hands. It wasn’t no pretty sight to see—the inside of that house. And last of all they got Piotto, fightin’ like an old wildcat, into a corner with his daughter; and William Drew, he took Piotto into his arms and busted his back. That don’t sound possible, but when you see Drew you’ll know how it was done.
“The girl, she’d been knocked cold before this happened. So while Bard and Drew sat together bindin’ up each other’s wounds—because they was shot pretty near to pieces—they talked it over and they seen pretty clear that the girl would never marry the man that had killed her father. Of course, old Bill Drew, he’d done the killing, but that wasn’t any reason why he had to take the blame.
“They made up their minds that right there and then with the dead men lyin’ all around ’em, they’d match coins to see which one would take the blame of havin’ killed Piotto—meanin’ that the other one would get the girl—if he could.
“And Bard lost. So he had to take the credit of havin’ killed old Piotto. I’d of give something to have seen the two of ’em sittin’ there—oozin’ blood—after that marchin’ was decided. Because they tell me that Bard was as big as Drew and looked pretty much the same.
“Then Bard, he asked Drew to let him have one chance at the girl, lettin’ her know first what he’d done, but jest trustin’ to his power of talk. Which, of course, didn’t give him no show. While he was makin’ love to the girl she outs with a knife and tries to stick him—nice, pleasant sort she must have been—and Drew, he had to pry the two of ’em apart.
“That made the girl look sort of kind on Drew and she swore that sooner or later she’d have the blood of Bard for what he’d done—either have it herself or else send someone after him to the end of the world. She was a wild one, all right.
“She was so wild that Drew, after they got married, took her over on the far side of the range and built that old house that’s rottin’ there now. Bard, he left the range and wasn’t never seen again, far as I know.”
It was clear to Anthony, bitterly clear. His father had had a grim scene in parting with Drew and had placed the continent between them. And in the Eastern states he had met that black-eyed girl, his mother, and loved her because she was so much like the wild daughter of Piotto. The girl Joan in dying had probably extracted from Drew a promise that he would kill Bard, and that promise he had lived to fulfil.
“So Joan died?” he queried.
“Yep, and was buried under them two trees in front of the house. I don’t think she lived long after they was married, but about that nobody knows. They was clear off by themselves and there isn’t any one can tell about their life after they was married. All we know is that Drew didn’t get over her dyin’. He ain’t over it yet, and goes out to the old place every month or so to potter around the grave and keep the grass and the weeds off of it and clean the head-stone.”
The candle guttered wildly on the floor. It had burnt almost to the wood and now the remnant of the wick stood in a little sprawling pool of grease white at the outer edges.
Bard yawned, and patted idly the blanket where it touched on the shape of the revolver beneath. In another moment that candle would gutter out and they would be left in darkness.
He said: “That’s the best yarn I’ve heard in a good many days; it’s enough to make any one sleepy—so here goes.”
And he turned deliberately on his side.
Nash, his eyes staring with incredulity, sat up slowly among his blankets and his hand stole up toward the noose of the lariat. A light snore reached him, hardly a snore so much as the heavy intake of breath of a very weary, sleeping man; yet the hand of Nash froze on the lariat.
“By God,” he whispered faintly to himself, “he ain’t asleep!”
And the candle flared wildly, leaped, and shook out.
CHAPTER XXI
THE SWIMMING OF THE SAVERACK
Over the face of Nash the darkness passed like a cold hand and a colder sense of failure touched his heart; but men who have ridden the range have one great power surpassing all others—the power of patience. As soundlessly as he had pushed himself up the moment before, he now slipped down in the blankets and resigned himself to sleep.
He knew that he would wake at the first hint of grey light and trusted that after the long ride of the day before his companion would still be fast asleep. That half light would be enough for his work; but when he roused while the room was still scarcely more visible than if it were filled with a grey fog, he found Bard already up and pulling on his boots.
“How’d you sleep?” he growled, following the example of the tenderfoot.
“Not very well,” said the other cheerily. “You see, that story of yours was so vivid in my mind that I stayed awake about all night, I guess, thinking it over.”
“I knew it,” murmured Nash to himself. “He was awake all the time. And still—”
If that thrown noose of the lariat had settled over the head and shoulders of the sham sleeper it would have made no difference whether he waked or slept—in the end he would have sat before William Drew tied hand and foot. If that noose had not settled? The picture of the little piece of paper fluttering to the floor came back with a strange vividness to the mind of Nash, and he had to shrug his shoulders to shake the thought away.
They were in the saddle a very few moments after they awoke and started out, breakfastless. The rain long ago had ceased, and there was only the solemn silence of the brown hills around them—silence, and a faint, crinkling sound as if the thirsty soil still drank. It had been a heavy fall of rain, they could see, for whenever they passed a bare spot where no grass grew, it was crossed by a thick tracery of the rivulets which had washed down the slopes during the night.
Soon they reached a little creek whose current, barely knee deep, foamed up around the shoulders of the horses and set