"Yes."
Their eyes clashed, and those of the stronger man won.
"We can talk it over here," Dixon said sullenly.
"We can, but we won't."
"I don't know as I want to go back up the trail."
"Come." Larrabie let a hand fall on the shoulder of the other man—a brown, strong hand that showed no more uncertainty than the steady eyes.
Dixon cursed peevishly, but after a moment he turned to go back. He did not know why he went, except that there was something compelling about this man. Besides, he told himself, his news would keep for half an hour without spoiling. They walked nearly a quarter of a mile before he stopped.
"Now get busy, Mr. Keller. I've got no time to monkey," he stormed, attempting to regain what he had lost by his concession.
"Sho! You've got all day. This rush notion is the great failing of the American people. We hadn't ought to go through life on the lope—no, sir! We need to take the rest cure for that habit," Larrabie mused aloud, seating himself on a flat boulder between Tom and the ranch.
Dixon let out an oath. "Did you bring me here to tell me that durn foolishness?"
"Not only to tell you. I figured we would try out the rest cure, you and me. We'll get close to nature out here in the sunshine, and not do a thing but rest till the cows come home," Keller explained easily. His voice was indolent, his manner amiable; but there was a wariness in his eyes that showed him prepared for any move.
So it happened that when Dixon made the expected dash into the chaparral Keller nailed him in a dozen strides.
"Let me alone! Let me go!" cried Tom furiously. "You've got no business to keep me here."
"I'm doing it for pleasure, say."
The other tried to break away, but Larrabie had caught his arm and twisted it in such a way that he could not move without great pain. Impotently he writhed and cursed. Meanwhile his captor relieved him of his revolver, and, with a sudden turn, dropped him to the ground and stepped back.
"What's eating you, Keller? Have you gone plumb crazy? Gimme back that gun and let me go," the young fellow screamed.
"You don't need the gun right now. Maybe, if you had it, you might take a notion to plug me the way you did Buck Weaver."
"What—what's that?" Then, in angry suspicion: "I suppose Phyllis told you that lie."
He had not finished speaking before he regretted it. The look in the face of the other told him that he had gone too far and would have to pay for it.
"Stand up, Tom Dixon! You've got to take a thrashing for that. There's been one coming to you ever since you ran away and left a girl to stand the gaff for you. Now it's due."
"I don't want to fight," Tom whined. "I reckon I oughtn't to have said that, but you drove me to it. I'll apologize——"
"You'll apologize after your thrashing, not before. Stand up and take it."
Dixon got to his feet very reluctantly. He was a larger man than his opponent by twenty pounds—a husky, well-built fellow; but he was entirely without the fighting edge. He knew himself already a beaten man, and he cowered in spirit before his lithe antagonist, even while he took off his coat and squared himself for the attack. For he knew, as did anybody who looked at him carefully, that Keller was a game man from the marrow out.
Men who knew him said of Larrabie Keller that he could whip his weight in wild cats. Get him started, and he was a small cyclone in action. But now he went at his man deliberately, with hard, straight, punishing blows.
Dixon fought back wildly, desperately, but could not land. He could see nothing but that face with the chilled-steel eyes, but when he lashed out it was never there. Again and again, through the openings he left, came a right or a left like a pile driver, with the weight of one hundred and sixty pounds of muscle and bone back of it. He tried to clinch, and was shaken off by body blows. At last he went down from an uppercut, and stayed down, breathing heavily, a badly thrashed man.
"For God's sake, let me alone! I've had enough," he groaned.
"Sure of that?"
"You've pretty near killed me."
Larrabie laughed grimly. "You didn't get half enough. I'll listen to that apology now, my friend."
With many sighs, the prostrate man came through with it haltingly. "I didn't mean—I hadn't ought to have said——"
Keller interrupted the tearful voice. "That'll be enough. You will know better, next time, how to speak respectfully of a lady. While we're on the subject, I don't mind telling you that nobody told me. I'm not a fool, and I put two and two together. That's all. I'm not her brother. It wasn't my business to punish you because you played the coyote. But when you said she lied to me, that's another matter."
For very shame, trampled in the dust as he had been, Tom could not leave the subject alone. Besides, he had to make sure that the story would be kept secret.
"The way of it was like this: After I shot Buck Weaver, we saw they would kill me if I was caught; so we figured I had better hunt cover. 'Course I knew they wouldn't hurt a girl any," he got out sullenly.
"You don't have to explain it to me," answered the other coldly.
"You ain't expecting to tell the boys about me shooting Buck, are you?" Dixon asked presently, hating himself for it. But he was afraid of Phil and his father. They had told him plainly what they thought of him for leaving the girl in the lurch. If they should discover that he had done the shooting and left her to stand the blame for it, they would do more than talk.
"I certainly ought to tell them. Likely they may want to see you about it, and hear the particulars."
"There ain't any need of them knowing. If Phyl had wanted them to know, she could have told them," said Tom sulkily. He had got carefully to his feet, and was nursing his face with a handkerchief.
"We'll go and break our news together," suggested the other cheerfully. "You tell them you think Weaver is in her room, and I'll tell them my little spiel."
"There's no need telling them about me shooting Weaver, far as I can see. I'd rather they didn't know."
"For that matter, there's no need telling them your notions about where Buck is right now."
Tom said nothing, but his dogged look told Larrabie that he was not persuaded.
"I tell you what we'll do," said Keller, then: "We'll unload on them both stories, or we won't tell them either. Which shall it be?"
Dixon understood that an ultimatum was being served on him. For, though his former foe was smiling, the smile was a frosty one.
"Just as you say. I reckon it's your call," he acquiesced sourly.
"No—I'm going to leave it to you," grinned Larrabie.
The man he had thrashed looked as if he would like to kill him. "We'll close-herd both stories, then."
"Good enough! Don't let me keep you any longer, if you're in a hurry. Now we've had our little talk, I'm satisfied."
But Dixon was not satisfied. He was stiff and sore physically, but mentally he was worse. He had played a poor part, and must still do so. If he went down to the ranch with his face in that condition, he could not hope to escape observation. His vanity cried aloud against submitting to the comment to which he would be subjected. The whole story of the thrashing would be bound to come out.
"I can't go down looking like this," he growled.
"Do you have to go down?"
"Have to get my horse, don't I?"
"I'll bring it to you."
"And say nothing about—what has happened?"
"I don't care to talk of it any more than