He raised his great head, and his voice swelled.
“Wherever I’ve gone, I’ve been king,” he declared. “I’ve never met a man that could match me if it came to strength of muscles or strength of quick thinking. I’ve planned better than the others, and I’ve beat ‘em in cunning and in tricks. I’ve read their minds and beat them always. Just the same way, when it come to fighting, I’ve beat ‘em at fighting. I’m going to go East, Jerry, if you say the word, and do the same thing there that I’ve done in the West. I’m going to run men—run ‘em by the score—have ‘em working for me! And you, Jerry—you’ll be the power behind. You’ll be the rider with your hand on the reins. I’ll run scores, and you’ll run me. You’ll be like a queen on a throne, Jerry. You hear?”
She believed him, as she had reason to. It was within his capabilities to do as he said—to build up a power relentlessly strong, to make her rich, to pour treasures into her lap. Wherever he went, he would be king, and she, by very virtue of the fact that she did not love him blindly, could be absolute dictator in his life and carry the great power of the man in the palm of her hand to do with it as she pleased.
Yet she shook her head, though she paused a moment before she answered. It had been a great temptation. Moreover, she knew that the man would lead as straight a life, for her sake, as he had led a criminal one for his own sake.
“I can’t do it,” she said simply. “I tell you frankly, Jack, that I admire you for your strength, and I’m grateful with all my soul for what you’ve done for me. But I respect you too much, and I respect all the possibilities in you too much, to do what you ask. There’s no use talking any further!”
It was her calmness that laid the whip on him more than her words. He had debased himself before her. He had offered to sell himself. He had, so to speak, put a saddle on his back and offered to go where she bid him, and her refusal tortured him.
“Then,” he said suddenly, “Heaven help Hugh Dawn!”
She winced and stared at him.
“I say it again,” said the outlaw. “Heaven help Hugh Dawn!”
XXVIII. THE LAST CARD
There was no question about the threat which his words implied. He had drawn away from her as he spoke, and now he sat gloomily, drawing his horse to a halt.
“Here’s where I leave you,” said Jack Moon. “You go on with the hosses, and you take the gold. I’ve promised you that, and I keep my promise.”
“Do you think I value the money a straw’s weight?” she cried in terror. “Jack, what do you mean about my father?”
“Why, Jerry,” he said, frowning in wonder that she did not understand, “you see there ain’t more’n two ways open to me. Either I sell myself out to you and go East as your husband, or else I go back up the north trail and meet my boys and take command again. I’ll have to find an explanation for being away so long, but I’ll explain it away, right enough, and take command; and, once back in command, I’ll forget about you as though you never existed!”
“But my father?”
“Why, the boys have a claim on his life—and he’s got to go! He owes us a debt, and he’s got to pay. I’ve busted too many rules already. Once back at the head of the band, I play the game.”
“You can’t do it,” breathed the girl. “You can’t do it!”
“You think so?” he answered, almost sneering. “You don’t know me, Jerry. There’s one thing I love more than the rest of the world, and that’s you; but next to you I love power, and to me power is the band. The way I hold the band together is by being as cold as iron and as hard as iron. I rule ‘em with a stiff rod, and they come to me when I tell ‘em to come, they go when I tell ‘em to go. One sign of softening, and they’ll turn and sink their teeth in me. So I won’t soften!”
It was a bluff. He knew that he had already hopelessly lost the band. But it was a bluff which must win.
“If I don’t soften, I’ve got to get your father out of the way. His life is a forfeit. And it’s got to be paid down. I go back up the north trail. I find the boys and swing ‘em southward. Before night I ride down your father on the way to Trainor and leave him dead on the trail. There’s nothing else to do.”
He turned his horse, waving to her, settled his hat more firmly on his head, and touched the gray with the spurs, but at the first leap he heard her voice calling faintly after him. He checked the gray and turned, his heart bounding with triumph.
There she sat with her eyes almost closed in the pain of what she was to do, and both her hands clutched hard over the pommel of the saddle.
“Come back to me,” said Jerry Dawn sadly. “I didn’t know it was possible. Even now I’d go down on my knees and beg with you, Jack Moon, except that I know it’s worse than useless! You are what you say—hard as iron. I surrender. Tell me what I have to do. I’ll do it. But I never will forgive you.”
A strange sound of choked triumph came from the throat of the outlaw. He had played his last card, to be sure, but that last card had been enough, and he had won. He forbore, however, from pressing his triumph on her.
“We’ll ride out of the hills and down into the valley,” he said quietly. “And there well find a minister in the first town. In that town we’ll be married. You understand, Jerry?”
She swallowed and then nodded, never looking at him.
“But when we’re East, Jerry, I’ll teach you to forgive me. This thing may be hard for you to do. But someday—”
She raised a hand in mute entreaty, and he stopped abruptly. So they rode on in silence until they reached the crest of the highest mountain, where the trail drove straight down before them. Faraway, beyond the foothills, stretched the green fields of that rich farming country, and he could see the windows of the first town gleaming faintly in the early rays of the morning sun. There was, indeed, his promised land!
There was a sound of a caught breath from the girl. He glanced aside at her and saw that she had turned in the saddle and was looking back, though when he turned to her she instantly righted herself in the saddle and faced forward again. But that stifled exclamation of pleasure, or fear, aroused his interest, and, searching the ranges of hills which stretched behind and below him in wave after wave, he saw, two crests away, the form of a horseman riding over a summit at full gallop.
The outlaw set his teeth and whipped out the field glasses from the saddle pocket. By the time he had focused the glasses, he was able to catch only a glimpse as the horseman dipped out of sight among the trees, but that glimpse had been enough. He had made out the flashing sides of a bay horse. He had marked the gait of the animal, long and free as the flight of a swallow, dipping lightly up and down on the wind. There was no other horse in the range of the mountains with that high-headed grace, that spiritlike ease of gait. It was the mare, Lou, and that rider was Ronicky Doone!
“Ride!” he called to the girl. “Ride hard, Jerry. Don’t put your hopes in the fool behind us. He’s late. He’s too late, like all the rest that come up against Jack Moon. He’s late, and he’s beaten!”
“Who is it?” cried the girl above the roar of the hoofs as the horses broke down the slope of the mountain.
“Nobody