"Yo' have nothin' to fear from me, ma'm. I don't traffic in women."
She thought she heard a shuttering sound away down the slope. San Saba spoke a little more quickly. "Ma'm, yo' got nothin' to fear. Stand up. Did the dawg do an—?"
There was a break to the sentence. She looked up to see the man facing north, slightly bent, and his little eyes running back and forth over the trees. The drumming became plainer, more insistent, brush broke and crackled. San Saba shook his head at her. "Keep still. No sound from yo'." He retreated and presently was in the thicket. Lorena got to her feet, meaning to run over and meet the oncoming horsemen; before she could move Gillette swept into the clearing, hatless, and a streak of crimson fresh on his face. Lorena flung up her arms, crying, "Tom—look out—watch the bushes!"
She saw him sway. A shot blasted the glade. Gillette was pat against his saddle, gun speaking along the far side of his horse. There was a rumbling yell, and Quagmire spurred on across the opening. More shots ran into each other, and a swift exchange of words rumbled and died out there beyond sight. The brush smashed, Quagmire sounded again, farther off; at this Tom slipped from his saddle and gathered the girl toward him, saying not a word.
Quagmire returned, wrath simmering on his morose face. "San Saba. Pullin' consid'ble leather. Waitin' to take a bite at yo', Tom. Looks like he got a stray skunk befo' he lit out, though. Durnedest fella ever I met. One shot an' run. Shucks, I couldn't ketch him with this hay burner."
"Let's turn back," said Gillette. He stepped around the girl, shielding her from the sight of the dead Lispenard; he put her into his own saddle and took the dead man's horse. The three of them rode down the slope single file.
"One chore done, another to do," murmured Quagmire. "Allus a little bit o' scandal left over. It ain't creation's pu'pose ever to let mortal man get a square deal. All we do from cradle to grave is play a rigged game. Ain't it foolish?"
XVII. ALL TRAILS CROSS
They came back to the cabin. The horses and wagon stood in the clearing, the preacher sat on a stump trimming himself a switch; and when Lorena saw him her tired, troubled face turned to Tom in a mute appeal. He helped her to the ground, murmuring:
"I know it's been a mighty hard day. Can't blame you for not wanting to be married after all this water's gone under the bridge. If you'd rather postpone it until tomorrow..."
She shook her head slightly and motioned toward the cabin. Once inside she closed the door and faced him. "It's not so much that, Tom. I know I should be sorry for the man, but after all's happened I can't bring myself to feel much sympathy. It had to happen, he was doomed to die; all I regret is that San Saba was so cruel about it—so cruel, Tom!" She stopped a moment, and he saw her fighting for control. He was about to support her; she shook her head again. "I'm strong—nothing can hurt me. It isn't that, but..."
"You've changed your mind?" he asked, the words running together.
"Tom, I can't ever change my mind as far as I'm concerned with you! What's in me will always be there. But why do other people live so securely while with us everything goes wrong? The very moment I saw you, Tom, trouble started for you and everyone near you. I know it. Treachery and bloodshed and bitter feeling—and now you are about to lose all that you own."
"You've had nothing to do with it," he interrupted almost roughly. "What's to be is to be. All this is in the cards. A man's got to fight to live. What you saw to-day is on your mind—it'll die out."
"I'm not sure. Sometimes I think it's a warning for me not to marry you. What can I bring to you, Tom? The other girl, she's more of your kind—she's beautiful and she's educated. She can talk of the things you know, she's been a part of your life. What am I? Oh, Tom, I don't know..."
"I won't hear any more of that," muttered Gillette. "There's more in your little finger than in her whole body. I know who I want, don't I? By George, I reckon I've got to marry you by force before you let these queer notions get the best of you."
She seemed not to hear him. There was a set to her chin and a remote light in her eyes. She had come to a decision. "I'll not marry you here, Tom. I'm going back with you. I'm going to see that girl. Call it queer if you want, but I can't disobey my instincts. I'd—I'd feel almost unclean..."
"Look here, Lorena..."
"It's settled. Now let's go, Tom."
There was nothing more to be said; he saw that nothing on earth would move that stubborn ruling. Lorena Wyatt was no half- heart; every fibre in her was steel true; she owned a courage and a will, and now she used them, no matter how it hurt her. Gillette dropped his head, unable to meet her eyes. She was whispering something to him that he didn't hear, her arm touched him and slid away. Then he swung on his heel and went out.
"Let's go," he told Quagmire. And to the preacher he added a short phrase. "Reckon we won't be needin' your help to-day."
Lorena's effects went into the wagon, she climbed to the seat beside Tom. He turned the team and wound down-hill through the trees. Quagmire followed a-saddle leading Gillette's horse. And the caravan dropped through Deadwood's rutty street and on out into the swelling land that stretched northeast.
It was a long and tedious trip, the blazing sun pouring out of the cloudless sky by day and the sharp winds slicing across the prairie by night. Ahead of them was uncertainty, behind was nothing but the memory of disaster, of a dead man and of a man who deserved to die yet still lived. What none of the three knew was that this man followed them like a stalking beast all across the leagues of sand; and at night he closed up the interval and lay on the crest of a swell or in the shelter of an arroyo, watching their camp fire with his round, unblinking eyes. He might have come within revolver shot, he might have made his attempt at Gillette's life in the darkness, but he never so much as harboured the idea; for San Saba had tried to kill Tom Gillette on four different occasions by stealth, each time failing. He was a hard-headed renegade, yet there was in him a trace of that mysticism known as the gambler's hunch. The hunch told him he never would master Gillette by that method; therefore he would try another—he would wait, and he would face Gillette, and he would match guns openly. Thus he kept to the shadows, and at day waited until the wagon had dropped out of sight before taking up the pursuit.
Ordinarily San Saba was a cautious man; he loved to look upon the world from a place of shelter, to be slightly withdrawn from the light. He had infinite patience, and up to this point in his life he had never let his hatred obscure the cold reason dwelling in his little nutshell head. Sometimes the scales tipped against him, and rather than even the score he had turned and ridden away to other places. With him it was usually a matter of fresher and farther pastures. The very fact that he disobeyed this life-long habit now augured powerful and upsetting change. San Saba had arrived at the point in his checkered career where personal satisfaction outweighed every other consideration. He hated Gillette as he had never hated another man; it was a matter of pride, of instinct, and of a dozen other unfathomable reasons. Whichever way the man turned he saw Gillette standing before him, seeming to mock and threaten him out of those deeply set eyes. Gillette was a challenge. He would never rest until he settled the affair. So the poison spread through San Saba's thin, malarial body and constricted his temper until the red signals spread around his lids, like a cobra raising its hood.
The little party climbed at last the slope beyond which lay the Circle G ranch houses. Quagmire spurred ahead. When Tom Gillette drew the horses in and wrapped the reins around the brake handle, the crew was mustered before him. The eviction notice still clung to the house wall; nothing had been touched, no other move