CHAPTER II – SLICK DUDS

After a time Taylor’s lips wreathed into a smile. He searched in his pockets – he had transferred all his effects from the clothing in the suitcase to his present uncomfortable raiment – and produced a long, faded envelope in danger of imminent disintegration.

The smile faded from his lips as he drew out the contents of the envelope, and a certain grim pity filled his eyes. He read:

Squint:

That rock falling on me has fixed me. There is no use in me trying to fool myself. I’m going out. There’s things a man can’t say, even to a friend like you. So I’m writing this. You won’t read it until after I’m gone, and then you can’t tell me what you think of me for shoving this responsibility on you. But you’ll accept, I know; you’ll do it for me, won’t you?

I’ve had a lot of trouble – family trouble. It wouldn’t interest you. But it made me come West. Maybe I shouldn’t have come. I don’t know; but it seemed best.

You’ve been a mighty persevering friend, and I know you from the ground up. You never inquired about my past, but I know you’ve wondered. Once I mentioned my daughter, and I saw you look sharp at me. Yes, there is a daughter. Her name is Marion. There was a wife and her brother, Elam Parsons. But only Marion counts. The others were too selfish and sneaking.

You won’t be interested in that. But I want Marion taken care of. She was fifteen when I saw her last. She looked just like me; thank God for that! She won’t have any of the characteristics of the others!

Squint, I want you to take care of her. You’ll find her in Westwood, Illinois. You and me have talked of selling the mine. Sell it; take my share and for it give Marion a half-interest in your ranch, the Arrow. If there is any left, put it in land in Dawes – that town is going to boom. Guard it for her, and marry her, Squint; she’ll make you a good wife. Tell her I want her to marry you; she’ll do it, for she always liked her “dad.”

There was more, but Taylor read no further. He stuffed the envelope into a pocket and sat looking out of the window, regarding morosely the featureless landscape. After a time he grinned saturninely:

“Looks to me like a long chance, Larry,” he mused. “Considered as a marrying proposition she don’t seem to be enthusiastic over me. Now what in thunder is she doing out here, and why is that man Carrington with her – and where did she pick him up?”

There came no answer to these questions.

Reluctant, after the girl’s mocking smile, to seem to intrude, Taylor sat in the smoking-compartment during the long afternoon, until the dusk began to descend – until through the curtains of the compartment he caught a glimpse of the girl and her companions returning from the dining-car. Then, after what he considered a decent interval, he emerged from the compartment, went to the diner, ate heartily, and returned to the smoking-room.

He had met Larry Harlan about three years before. Harlan had appeared at the Arrow one morning, looking for a job. Taylor had hired him, not because he needed men, but because he thought Harlan needed work. A friendship had developed, and when one day Harlan had told Taylor about a mine he had discovered in the Sangre de Christo Mountains, some miles southwestward, offering Taylor a half-interest if the latter would help him get at the gold, Taylor had agreed.

They had found the mine, worked it, and had taken considerable gold out of it, when one day a huge rock had fallen on Harlan. Taylor had done what he could, rigging up a drag with which to take Harlan to town and a doctor, but Harlan had died before town could be reached.

That had been the extent of Taylor’s friendship for the man. But he had followed Harlan’s directions.

Sitting in the smoking-compartment, he again drew out Harlan’s note to him and read further:

Marion will have considerable money, and I don’t want no sneak to get hold of it – like the sneak that got hold of the money my wife had, that I saved. There’s a lot of them around. If Marion is going to fall in love with one of that kind, I’d rather she wouldn’t get what I leave – the man would get it away from her.

Use your own judgment, and I’ll be satisfied.

It was not difficult for Taylor to divine what had happened to Harlan, nor was it difficult to understand that the man’s distrust of other men amounted to an obsession. However, Taylor had no choice but to assume the trust and no course but to obey Harlan’s wishes in the matter.

Taylor’s trip eastward to Kansas City had been for the purpose of attending to his own financial interests, and incidentally to conclude the deal for the sale of the mine. He had deposited the money in his own name, but he intended – or had intended – after returning to the Arrow to make arrangements for his absence, to go to Westwood to find Marion Harlan. The presence of the girl on the train and the certain conviction that she was bound for Dawes made the trip to Westwood unnecessary.

For Taylor had no doubt that the girl was the daughter of Larry Harlan. That troublesome resemblance of hers to someone of his acquaintance bothered him no longer, for the girl was the living image of Larry Harlan.

Taylor had not anticipated the coming of Carrington into his scheme of things. For the first time since Larry Harlan’s letter had come into his possession he realized that deep in his heart was a fugitive desire for the coming of the girl to the Arrow. He had liked Larry Harlan, and he had drawn mental pictures of what the daughter would be like; and, though she was not exactly as he had pictured her, she was near enough to the ideal he had visualized. He wanted, now more than ever, to faithfully fulfil his obligation to Larry Harlan.

The presence of Carrington on the train, coupled with the inference that Carrington was a close friend of the girl’s, irritated Taylor. For at the first glance he had felt a subtle antagonism for the man. Yet he was more disturbed over the mockery in the girl’s eyes when she had looked directly at him when she had caught him listening to her talk with Carrington and the older man.

Still, Taylor was not the type of man who permits the imminence of discord to disturb his mental equanimity, and he grinned into the growing darkness of the plains with a grimly humorous twist to his lips that promised interesting developments should Carrington oppose him.

When he again looked out of the aperture in the curtains screening the smoking-compartment from the aisle he saw the porter pass, carrying bedclothing. Later he saw the porter returning, smilingly inspecting a bill. After an interval the porter stuck his head through the curtains and surveyed him with a flashing grin:

“Is you ready to retiah, boss?” he asked.

A quarter of an hour later Taylor was alone in his berth, gazing at his reflection in the glass while he undressed.

“You wouldn’t have the nerve to think she is interested in you, would you – you homely son-of-a-gun?” he queried of his reflection. “Why, no, she ain’t, of course,” he added; “no woman could be interested in you. You’ve been all day looking like a half-baked dude – and no woman is interested in dudes!”

Carefully removing the contents of the several pockets of the despised wearing apparel in which he had suffered for many days, he got into his nightclothes and rang for the porter. When the latter appeared with his huge grin, Taylor gave him the offensive clothing, bundled together to form a large ball.

“George,” he said seriously, almost solemnly, “I’m tired of being a dude. Some day I may decide to be a dude; but not now. Take these duds and save them until I ask for them. If you offer them to me before I ask for them, I’ll perforate you sure as hell!”

He produced a big Colt pistol from somewhere, and as the weapon glinted in the light the porter’s eyes bulged and he backed away, gingerly holding the bundle of clothing.

“Yassir, boss – yassir! I shuah won’t mention it till you does, boss!”

When the porter had gone, Taylor grinned into the glass.

“I sure have felt just what I looked,” he said.

Then he got into his berth and dreamed all night of a girl whose mocking eyes seemed to say:

“Well, do you think you have profited by listening?”

“Why, sure,” he retorted, in his dreams; “I’ve seen you, ain’t I?”

CHAPTER III – THE SERPENT TRAIL

Marion Harlan did not dream of Quinton Taylor, though her last waking thought was of him, and when she opened her eyes in the morning it was to see him as he had sat in the seat behind Carrington and her uncle, his eyes wide with interest, or astonishment – or some emotion that she could not define – looking directly at her.

She had been certain then, and still was certain that he had been feigning sleep, that he had been listening to the talk carried on between her uncle and Carrington.

Why had he listened?

That interrogation absorbed her thoughts as she dressed.

She had not meant to be interested in him, for she had, in her first glance at him, mentally decided that he was no more interesting than many another ill-dressed and uncouth westerner whom she had seen on the journey toward Dawes.

To be sure, she had seen signs of strength in him, mental and physical, but that had been when she looked at him coming toward her down the aisle. But even then he had not interested her; her interest began when she noted his interest in the conversation of her traveling companions. And then she had noticed several things about him that had escaped her in other glances at him.

For one thing, despite the astonishment in his eyes, she had observed the cold keenness of them, the odd squint at the corners, where little wrinkles, splaying outward, indicated either deliberate impudence or concealed mirth. She was rather inclined to believe it the latter, though she would not have been surprised to discover the wrinkles to mean the former.

And then she had noted his mouth; his lips had been straight and firm; she had been sure they were set resolutely when she had surprised him looking at her. That had seemed to indicate that he had taken more than a passing interest in what he had overheard.

She speculated long over the incident, finally deciding that much would depend upon what he had overheard. There was only one way to determine that, and at breakfast in the dining-car she interrogated Carrington.

“Of course, you and uncle are going to Dawes on business, and I am merely tagging along to see if I can find any trace of my father. But have you any business secrets that might interest an eavesdropper? On a train, for instance – a train going toward Dawes?”

“What do you mean?” Carrington’s eyes flashed as he leaned toward her.

“Have you and uncle talked business within hearing distance of a stranger?”

Carrington’s face flushed; he exchanged a swift glance with the other man.

“You mean that clodhopper with the tight-fitting hand-me-down in the seat behind us – yesterday? He was asleep!”

“Then you did talk business – business secrets,” smiled the girl. “I thought really big men commonly concealed their business secrets from the eager ears of outsiders.”

She laughed aloud at Carrington’s scowl, and then went on:

“I don’t think the clodhopper was asleep. In fact, I rather think he was very wide awake. I wouldn’t say for certain, but I think he was awake. You see, when I came back to talk with you he was sitting very straight, and his eyes were wide open.

“And I shall tell you something else,” she went on. “During all the time he sat behind you, when you were talking, I watched him, he was pretending to sleep, for at times he opened his eyes and looked at you, and I am sure he was not thinking pleasant thoughts. And I don’t believe he is a clodhopper. I think he amounts to something; and if you will look well at him you will see, too. When he was listening to you there was a look in his eyes that made me think of fighting.” And then, after a momentary pause, she added slowly, “there isn’t anything wrong about the business you are going to transact out here – is there?”

“Wrong?” he laughed. “Oh, no! Business is business.” He leaned forward and gazed deliberately into her eyes, his own glowing significantly. “You don’t think, with me holding your good opinion – and always hoping to better it – that I would do anything to destroy it, Marion?”

The girl’s cheeks were suffused with faint color.

“You are assuming again, Mr. James J. Carrington. I don’t care for your subtle speeches. I like you best when you talk frankly; but I am not sure that I shall ever like you enough to marry you.”

She smiled at the scowl in his eyes, then looked speculatively at him. It should have been apparent to him that she had spoken the truth regarding her feeling for him.

The uncle knew she had spoken the truth, for she left them presently, and the car door had hardly closed behind her when Carrington said, smiling grimly:

“She’s a thoroughbred, Parsons. That’s why I like her. I’ll have her, too!”

“Careful,” grinned the other, smoothly. “If she ever discovers what a brute you are – ” He made a gesture of finality.

“Brute! Bah! Parsons, you make me sick! I’ll take her when I want her! Why do you suppose I told her that fairy tale about her father having been seen in this locality? To get her out here with me, of course – where there isn’t a hell of a lot of law, and a man’s will is the only thing that governs him. She won’t have me, eh? Well, we’ll see!”

Parsons smirked at the other. “Then you lied about Lawrence Harlan having been seen in this country?”

“Sure,” admitted Carrington. “Why not?”

Parsons looked leeringly at Carrington. “Suppose I should tell her?”

Carrington glared at the older man. “You won’t,” he declared. “In the first place, you don’t love her as an uncle should because she looks like Larry Harlan – and you hated Larry. Suppose I should tell her that you were the cause of the trouble between her parents; that you framed up on her mother, to get her to leave Larry? Why, you damned, two-faced gopher, she’d wither you!”

He grinned at the other and got up, turning, when he reached his feet, to see Quinton Taylor, standing beside a chair at the next table, just ready to sit down, but delaying to hear the remainder of the extraordinary conversation carried on between the two men.

Taylor had donned the garments he had discarded in Kansas City. A blue woolen shirt, open at the throat; corduroy trousers, the bottoms stuffed into the soft tops of high-heeled boots; a well-filled cartridge-belt, sagging at the right hip with the weight of a heavy pistol – and a broad-brimmed felt hat, which a smiling waiter held for him – completed his attire.

Freshly shaved, his face glowed with the color that betokens perfect health; and just now his eyes were also glowing – but with frank disgust and dislike.

Carrington flushed darkly and stepped close to Taylor. Carrington’s chin was thrust out belligerently; his eyes fairly danced with a rage that he could hardly restrain.

“Listening again, eh?” he said hoarsely. “You had your ears trained on us yesterday, in the Pullman, and now you are at it again. I’ve a notion to knock your damned head off!”

Taylor’s eyelids flickered once, the little wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepening a trifle. But his gaze was steady, and the blue of his eyes grew a trifle more steely.

“You’ve got a bigger notion not to, Mr. Man,” he grinned. “You run a whole lot to talk.”

He sat down, twisted around in the chair and faced the table, casting a humorous eye at the black waiter, and ignoring Carrington.

“I’ll want a passable breakfast this morning, George,” he said; “I’m powerful hungry.”

He did not turn when Carrington went out, followed by Parsons.

The waiter hovered near him, grinning widely.

“I reckon you-all ain’t none scary, boss!” he said, admiringly.