"Pull up, you wildcats!"
The riders came to a swirling halt; they saw him. Another gun exploded and his name was sent ringing down between the building walls.
"Chaffee!"
The crowd heard it. The man on the box looked about and reechoed the cry. "Chaffee's back!" and then confusion hit Roaring Horse as a bolt of lightning. The crowd shifted and all its black mass came spilling onward toward Chaffee and the Stirrup S riders. A rumbling roar quivered through the chill night air, a sound sinister and fear inspiring. As hardened as he was, Jim Chaffee felt a spinal thrill. He whispered to the men about him. "Spread out—block the street. That gang will tear Woolfridge and his bunch apart."
Gay Thatcher had stayed in Roaring Horse, not knowing just why she did so. In her mind was the irrevocable decision that when she left this country it was to be forever. Perhaps, therefore, her delay rose from the knowledge that she would never see Roaring Horse again, never ride its swelling leagues again, never again mark the tall and lazy figure of Jim Chaffee coming down the street. All that was memory—to be laid sadly away in her heart along with other memories. So she stayed, very close to her room all the while. She had seen Woolfridge once in the lobby, and he had spoken with a queer and formal politeness. As the days went on and the story appeared in the weekly paper she began to note from her window the gradual forming of small clusters on the street. Homesteaders coming together. It grew to be a more common sight. And to-day she had witnessed the swift rolling up of the tide. She heard Jim Chaffee's name mentioned in the lobby, whereat the color came to her cheeks and her pulse beat the faster. She walked along the street, going as far as the courthouse and back again, impressed by a feeling of currents boiling through the air. She heard Chaffee's name many more times, murmured or sibilantly whispered. It seemed to be a kind of omen or a signal.
She was an observant girl and she was quick to observe how those men attached to Woolfridge ranged back and forward, going into this building, turning around that one, riding out to the desert and galloping back. The activity seemed to grow more pronounced as dusk threatened the world; the watchfulness on their faces deepened. When she returned to the Gusher she saw Locklear posted there with some of his men around him; and the homesteaders formed a thicker and more restless mass over by the stable. It all created a tension that played odd tricks with her nerves. She ate supper, scarcely touching the food, and sat in the lobby; even in that short interval the throaty rumbling of the mob had deepened to a pitch that sent a cold, still fright through her body. Locklear's sullen face seemed set and rather sallow, while his men were quite plainly uneasy. Perrine came in a moment later, eyes flashing strangely as the lamplight touched him. And though the girl felt a strong repulsion at the sight of him—the utter brutish and degrading qualities of the man challenging all her instincts of decency—yet she could not help acknowledging the ruthless, elemental courage he had. The others were crumbling, ready to run; he seemed scornful of the gathering power outside.
There was a short parley between them, talk shuttling back and forth in murmuring spurts. Perrine appeared to be urging some course of action that Locklear and the others disliked. The sheriff began to shake his head, whereat Perrine tilted his massive chin and spoke bluntly that a dull color came back to Locklear's cheek bones. But his only answer was to raise one hand and point outward in the direction of the mob. The girl got up, no longer able to sit so near the center of the gathering storm, and climbed the stairs. On the landing she turned to see Perrine looking up to her with a hard grin.
"You'll git yore money's worth before this sight-seein' trip is over, sister," he rumbled.
She passed along the dark hall and unlocked her door. The lamp still burned on the table as she had left it, and so she went in, a wave of relief coming over her at the knowledge she could shut herself away from the turbulence below. Pushing the door behind her, she heard a sighing sound on the carpet of the hall, the door struck resistance and flew open again. Whirling about she confronted William Wells Woolfridge. And the next moment he was in the room, closing the door and leaning against it.
"Well, my dear lady, have you been enjoying the show?"
He had changed. The smoothness was gone, the scrupulous grooming no longer showed on his clothing, and it appeared very odd to her that he should be wearing a pair of low street shoes instead of the customary boots. These, set against the bottom of his riding breeches, gave his attire a laughable incompleteness. But she was in no humor to laugh, for she knew she faced a dangerous man. There was a suppressed fury about him, an indefinable barbaric glint in his eyes that rose above his normal colorlessness. In his question was a trace of the old suavity, but only a trace.
"Mr. Woolfridge, I have not asked you to enter my room."
"No? This is not a time for ceremony. I have played your game long enough. There is always a time when rules cease to be desirable. I trust you have found the street scene as dramatic and thrilling as the customary act."
"I am not the kind to enjoy tragedy. Please go out."
"Ah. So you perceive tragedy? And perhaps feel this tragedy is a little of your own making?"
She had not thought of that. His question brought a moment's depression. Had she been the instrument by which this fury was loosened? Her clear, sound sense told her she had not been. Long before her part in the tangled affairs of Roaring Horse had been played, this dark night was in the making. Her share had been but to help reveal the inevitable result of another's wrongdoing.
"Mr. Woolfridge, look back on your own trail. Have you come to the point where you must blame others for your own scheming? You told me once of the great things you meant to do. Look out on the street! There is the result. You ought to be on your knees, praying. You are a man of education. You have money. Why should you want to bring starvation to these poor folks? You knew it wasn't right!"
He looked down at her, his face seeming to turn to stone. "You play your part well. Is it not time to drop the pretense that you love those clods out yonder? Dull kine—stupid with their lives, dumb and unthrifty. You say I should be sorry for them. I do not have so soft and civilized a conscience."
"Please go," she asked. "I don't care to argue. No—don't come any closer to me!"
She backed away, hand behind her. At the far side of the room, in a drawer of a desk, was the small pistol she always carried. She felt the need of it now. In the course of the week she had watched carefully for just such an interruption as this, knowing that Woolfridge might at some reckless hour cross the border line that divided the two sides of his dual nature. She had never left her door unlocked and never traveled alone outside the limits of town. Yet with all her watchfulness he had caught her off guard and now, step at a time, advanced as she retreated.
"I wouldn't try to attain melodrama," was Woolfridge's cool warning. "If you are trying to get a weapon stop where you are. I must have a talk with you."
"I'll ask you again to leave my room," said she.
"And don't scream," he went on as if he hadn't heard her. "I am past pretty manners right now."
She halted. Woolfridge nodded his head and likewise stopped. Though he never let his eyes stray from her, he seemed to be listening to the undertone of the mob rising up from the street and dimly sifting down the hall. His shoulders lifted. "Time changes all things. Well, I am not fool enough to play the part of King John. The waves may come. I won't try to stop them. In this world we go from one thing to another. Some people make the mistake of trying to hang on when it is too late. I never do. My dear, you are a beauty!"
"Did you come here to say that?"
He inclined his head. "To tell you that and more. You are worth all any man might offer. You are a beauty. You have a rare intelligence, and I love the combination. I did not, of course, bargain on your past. But, after all, what's the difference? It gives you a worldliness. And that, too, I admire. I am a worldling myself and sophistication is dear to me—"
Color flooded her cheeks. "You have no right to say that! Neither you nor your spy, Hunnewell. It is false!"
His