"He's afraid of me," grunted Dann to himself, watching the road below. "He's runnin' the bunch, and he don't want me to interfere. Higher they get, the more nervous they get. I can tell. He's took to watchin' his shadder—and that ain't healthy for anybody that crosses his path. But I was a sucker to leave. He meant somethin' by it. It wasn't just no case of gettin' Steers. Anybody could get that washed-out runt. Why pick me? Yeah, he had an idea, the slippery rat."
The sun rose higher, melting morning's dew. Three Leverage riders came around one side of the butte, patrolled as far as Starlight, and circled toward their ranch. Dann felt a strong desire to scatter them with his rifle, such being the rankling, surly state of his mind. And momentarily his resentment grew.
"I was a sucker to leave," he repeated. "Who's done all the hard work for Lou Redmain? Me. He gets the credit. And still he plays his own hand well enough to tell the wide world I shot Denver. I had ought to of stayed. It was smokin' up to a fight between me and him—and it only needed one bullet to settle him. That's my crowd, not his. He's afraid of me, that's what. Well, I'll get this job over with and go back. And we'll see who's—"
His roving glance came to focus. Beyond Starlight, a rider pursued the Sundown-Ysabel Junction road with a free gait. Dann crouched closer to the earth, sidling a little to keep the approaching man in view. He reached back for his rifle, considered the distance from butte to road, and slowly sent the bolt home on a shell. Tentatively he settled the gun to his shoulder. But in the very act of rehearsing the forthcoming scene he let the gun fall and scurried off to get a view of the reverse slope. The Leverage riders were still in sight. Dann watched them drift along, a scowl deepening on his red face. Then he returned to his original location and swept the green timber on the far side of the road, all the way up to the mouth of Starlight. That canyon was a tricky stretch of country. Denver country with Denver men in it; and the solitary rider had all that to his back as he loped ahead.
It was Steve Steers. Dann had recognized him at the first far glance. Steers rode with a peculiar flopping of elbows and a distinct swaying in the saddle; moreover, Steers had a favorite horse, colored like a blanket—a small horse that lifted his feet high. Dann leveled his gun on Steers, still engaged in the debate with himself. There was such a thing as missing his target, considering the distance; there was also the ever present possibility of a trap. Dann never forgot that item. And while he tarried, keeping his sight on Steers, the latter went rocketing through the throat of the hills, fell down the long grade, and was beyond reach. Dann cursed slowly, flipping over the rifle's safety. He watched Steers settle to a long straight course southward.
"He's goin' to the Junction," decided Dann. "And that's the chance I been waitin' for. Once he's out of these hills I know blamed well there ain't anybody helpin' him. Now I got him just like I want!"
He rode down the butte side, shot across the road, and gained cover once more. Fifteen minutes later he appeared on the edge of the prairie, away off to the left rear of Steers, who had become a bobbing point in the distance. An arroyo stretched over the undulating land like an avenue; into the protection of this Dann descended, whipping his horse.
Steve Steers never rode abroad without unconsciously absorbing the details of the land. This was range training. And recently he had been especially vigilant because of his challenge to Dann. Whether or not Dann was gunning for him, he couldn't tell, for in all his roundabout riding during the last four days he had found no sign of the burly outlaw. But today he crossed the prairie in a fairly relaxed frame of mind. Outside of the broken stretch of country called the Sugar Loaves half way to the Junction and the Mogul canyon slightly farther on, there was no place for an ambusher to hide. These two geographical man-traps he put behind without accident. Once, quite a few miles to his left rear, he had picked up a moving object and then rather suddenly lost it, but it was like a ship sighting another ship down the horizon and he paid scant attention. Two hours from Starlight he reined in at the Junction and dismounted, a little dry, a little drowsy, and expecting nothing. The only definite thoughts he had in mind related to his errand, which was to send a telegram up to Salt Lake to a certain gentleman who specialized in doing detective work around stockyards. He had talked the matter over with Niland, and they had agreed it might be illuminating to have the man look into Fear Langdell's shipments as they arrived, more especially studying the flesh side of the brands after the steers had been skinned.
He walked toward the station house, contemplating the utter desolation of this pin point upon the map. A dripping water tank dominated Ysabel Junction, which was half the reason for there being a railroad stop here at all. The other half rested on the presence of a long series of cattle pens and loading chutes that ran the full length of about eighteen hundred yards of siding. There were also three bilious colored section shanties, now quite empty of life, and a few flimsy sheds. And this was the scene. Steve ambled through the open door of the station house with an increasing sense of weariness. The telegraph clacked crisply through the droning air, but when he passed from the waiting room into the agent's combined office and living quarters he found nobody present.
"A large and busy life," he reflected, easing himself into a chair. "I'd go nuts if I didn't have nothin' to do but watch the trains pass by. This and sheep herdin' is my idea of absolute zero in human activity. Now I wonder where that gazook has done gone and lost himself?"
He rolled a cigarette and tilted the chair against the wall, considering it easier to wait than to go out and shout. A fly buzzed around his head, and he closed his eyes. The telegraph chattered companionably for a while, then fell silent. The world was large, and there was plenty of time, a seasonable share of which slid painlessly by before Steve took cognizance of it. The telegraph rattled again, and though Steve knew absolutely nothing about Morse code, he thought he detected a regular sequence in the call. The reiteration of it made him slightly uneasy; rising, he walked along the walls and studied the pictures tacked profusely thereon, most of them women out of magazines. Some had clothes on.
"Mama," grinned Steve, knocking back his hat, "come save your son! This fella has got taste."
After a while even the undeniable novelty of art appreciation waned. Steve considered. "His hat's here, his coat's here, and so's his gun. There's his pipe. Well, I guess he's got more time than I have, so I better look. Funny thing, but the less a man's got to do the harder he is to find."
He went back through the waiting room and stepped to the cindered runway. Not a soul stood against the hard bright day. Outside of the Mexican houses and the open sheds there was no place of refuge available to the agent. Steve began to resent the cosmic indifference sweltering around him. He opened his mouth and emitted a strident bellow.
"Hey!"
No reply. Not even an echo. It appeared there was no power sufficiently strong to dent the overwhelming vacantness. Steve considered the water tank thoughtfully. "Wonder if he climbed up there to take a bath and couldn't get out? HEY!"
He swore mildly and started for the Mexican houses. "Well, if I got to find him, I got to find him. But the type of help this railroad company employs shore is scandalous." His boots ground audibly into the cinders, then struck soft sand. The first Mexican house lay a hundred yards down the track, while a short fifty feet to the left stood the gaunt ribs of the first loading pen. Steers reached for his tobacco and had grasped the package in his fingers when a shaft of hard cold warning plunged through the lethargy of his mind. His hand froze to the tobacco sack, his feet faltered. But an impulse raced like lightning to his lagging muscles, and he pressed on, keeping the same tempo. There could be no turning back to the shelter of the station house now. He was a broad, fair target, and no safety presented itself short of the loading pen, which in that same interval had drawn a thousand miles off. Sweat prickled his skin; then he was cold and nerveless. He felt his face cracking under the strain of maintaining it lazily indifferent. And the end window of the nearest Mexican shanty stared