"Lorena—it still goes, doesn't it?"
"I don't change overnight, Tom."
"Well, I didn't think so, but a man like me can't expect too much good luck, so I figured I'd better make sure. But—but look here."
She turned. Gillette stood with his back to the wall, looking harried. "You've got to know something. Quagmire only told me last night, and if it makes any difference to you, the fact is, Kit Ballard is still there at the ranch, and she told Quagmire she was waiting. I want you to know I'm free. What's past is past—and cold as ashes. I didn't ask her to come, I didn't want her to come, and I'm under no obligations. You know where my heart is, Lorena."
"That is your own affair, Tom. I told you once I'd never pry into it."
"Well, you've got a right to know what you're jumping into. Fifteen minutes after we get home she'll have to pack her trunk—but I wouldn't want you to come up against that situation without knowing of it."
She walked over to him, and one hand dropped lightly on his shoulder. She went up a-tiptoe better to meet his eyes. "Whatever happens, I will never doubt you. Never! And I want you to believe the same about me. Oh, Tom, sometimes the whole thing frightens me—it seems as if it can't be true!"
He gathered her into his arms. "By Judas, what right have I got of doubting? You bet it's true. Quagmire and I are riding into town now to settle our affairs. I'll be bringing back a preacher—and a spring bed wagon and team for you to ride in."
"That's not necessary. I can ride the saddle, it will bring us home quicker."
"Nothing's good enough for my wife," said he gaily. He kissed her and turned out of the door, red-faced. Lorena's silver laugh followed him down the slope and from the distance he turned to grin at her. "You've got to remember I'm not used to this sort of thing yet."
"Some day it will be so old a story you'll forget."
"Not while sun shines or grass grows!"
Quagmire came out of the trees and joined Tom. Together the two of them followed the trail to town. Quagmire already had dickered for a wagon and a team, and Tom verified the bargain, paid for it, and went rummaging around the stores for accessories. He bought a light tent, a patented oven, and sundry dishes. He bought this and he bought that while Quagmire made relays from store to wagon, gloomy and skeptical. When all the purchasing was done and Gillette returned to the wagon he was somewhat staggered at the burden it made. Quagmire only spat on the ground and echoed a scant phrase.
"Yo' figgerin' to enter the freight business? Better hire six more hosses."
"Hush," grinned Gillette. "On a day like this I'm apt to do 'most anything. Quagmire, nothing's good enough for that girl. Now where's a preacher?"
No more than an hour elapsed from the time they entered Deadwood to the time they crawled upward through the trees. The smaller trail would not admit the wagon, and they were forced around in and out of the occasional alleyways. Gillette hallooed at the cabin and jammed on the brakes impatiently. Quagmire kept his seat, and the parson gingerly slid down and combed his whiskers with his fingers. Gillette walked toward the open door.
"Lorena—all right, Lorena."
She had no answer for him. When he looked into the cabin all the humour and the anticipation were swept from his face. She was not there. And that was only a part of the story, for every movable piece of furniture in the room was overturned, dishes were shattered, and his questing eyes saw a piece of her dress as big as his hand and ripped on all sides lying on the floor. That room had seen a tremendous struggle. Lorena had been kidnapped!
XVI. A DUEL
San Saba was no fool; he had all of an animal's perceptions, he almost instinctively knew when to avoid danger and when to crowd his luck. In no other way could the man have survived so long his doubtful and shaded existence. Sometimes those perceptions prompted him to do queer things; more than once, when in the full tide of fortune, he had quietly taken to his horse and left the scene of his victories behind him, apparently impelled by no other motive than that of plain cowardice. And there had also been occasions when San Saba stuck to his course when every indication would have warned an even less cautious man. The ex-foreman was full of seeming contradictions. He had absolutely no scruples, and it must be said of him that he had an abundance of a certain kind of courage; for all of that he was no firebrand, and he seldom took an open course when a secret one served him as well. What made so dangerous a figure was that uncanny ability to sense the thoughts of others and to feel and to interpret the cross-currents sweeping around him.
Thus he knew that Lispenard harboured some secret design. It took no great amount of perception to fathom this sullen and changeable figure, but it did augur uncommon wisdom that San Saba forbore forcing the issue. He waited as the days passed along and Lispenard grew more and more restless and more and more given over to fitful periods of brooding. The man rode out into the hills a great deal and always came back with a smouldering fire in his eyes, and after these excursions he always affected a casualness that only the more plainly warned San Saba. Still the ex-foreman bided his time. Then one morning Lispenard saddled his horse earlier than usual and started away without comment, San Saba's small eyes narrowed, and he called after the man.
"We got a chore with Hazel to-night. Don't forget it."
Lispenard turned fretfully. "To hell with Hazel. What's he done for us? Oh, I'll be around when the time comes."
San Saba squatted on the ground, listening to the horse's hoofs crunch across the fallen twigs. The sound scarcely had died out before he was up and over to his own mount in one swift dive; and as he started in pursuit of the Blond Giant his arm dropped toward the gun at his belt. Every feature grew cramped and bleak, the tell-tale film of crimson spread around the white of his eyes. "The dawg—the rotten-livered houn'! He ain't fitten to know what he does know—he's too rotten to live. Gillette's up there—he's traffickin' with the man. Sho'. He can't play that game with me."
He quickened his pace, then stopped as he saw Lispenard crossing a distant alley of the forest; then he went on again with all the stealthy intentness of a cat.
As for Lispenard, he had no caution about him this day; he was ridden by a solitary desire, and the farther he advanced the greater it became. Earlier, when he first discovered Lorena, he had been at some pains to conceal the nature of his expeditions, to double back and watch for pursuit. But San Saba had never followed, and in time Lispenard grew careless in this maze of trickery. He suspected Gillette's presence in the cabin, and he lay cached day after day among the bushes until he saw the man step uncertainly out into the sunlight. At that point he had a fair target. He could have killed Gillette from ambush, or he could have set San Saba afresh on the trail, neither of which acts was he above doing. Instead, he kept his own counsel and waited.
Before he got within sight of the cabin he heard Gillette calling back to the girl, and later he saw both Gillette and Quagmire swing down toward Deadwood. This was the situation for which he had long waited; directly they were out of sight he slipped off his horse, crept around on the blind side of the cabin, and circled until he stood by the door. She was singing to herself, crossing and recrossing the room. He marked her step until it came quite near the door, then he slid up to the entrance, traversed it at a stride and came face to face with her.
She drew back, she started to turn. His arms caught her like a trap, and all the pent-up sullen rage broke across the few flimsy barriers left of his decency. He struck her with his closed fist, and when she cried out and the echo of that cry trembled through the still, hot air he struck her again and shook her with all his strength.
"Shut up—you spitfire! I won't be bilked any more. By Godfrey, you'll pay your bill to me and you'll pay it in a neat lump sum!"
Her gun lay on the bunk, only a yard removed; and as she saw the taint in his bold eyes