Ambush at Torture Canyon E-Book

Max Brand

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

When Durfee rode up the valley, he found that the country fitted his mind as a glove fits the hand—the sort of glove that he preferred to wear—a little lighter in the leather and more delicate in the make than most of the buckskin gloves that a cowboy will buy.

He liked the look of things, because that look was clean. He saw the gleam of water, here and there; water that looked as though it might be running even in the dry middle of September, after a rainless season. And there were plenty of hills for variety, and yet it was a range that a man could gallop over. Three men, on this sort of a lay, could do the work that sometimes took the riding of ten in worse regions. And then the grass grew thick and short on the ground, the sort of grass that is sweetest on a cow’s tooth, that lays the fat round and hard along her backbone, to say nothing of horses. It was a good limestone country, too. He could see the white ribs and elbows of the stone punching through the sides of the hills. And where limestone shows, it will be in the water, and the limestone water makes bone, and bone is the first necessity in the scheme of things, if you want to build a horse.

Leseprobe

Max Brand

Ambush at Torture Canyon

BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Guide to Contents

Max

Brand

AMBUSH AT

TORTURE

CANYON

Part One

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

Part Two

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

Part Three

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 46

CHAPTER 47

Part One

Part One

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 1

When Durfee rode up the valley, he found that the country fitted his mind as a glove fits the hand—the sort of glove that he preferred to wear—a little lighter in the leather and more delicate in the make than most of the buckskin gloves that a cowboy will buy.

He liked the look of things, because that look was clean. He saw the gleam of water, here and there; water that looked as though it might be running even in the dry middle of September, after a rainless season. And there were plenty of hills for variety, and yet it was a range that a man could gallop over. Three men, on this sort of a lay, could do the work that sometimes took the riding of ten in worse regions. And then the grass grew thick and short on the ground, the sort of grass that is sweetest on a cow’s tooth, that lays the fat round and hard along her backbone, to say nothing of horses. It was a good limestone country, too. He could see the white ribs and elbows of the stone punching through the sides of the hills. And where limestone shows, it will be in the water, and the limestone water makes bone, and bone is the first necessity in the scheme of things, if you want to build a horse.

All that Durfee saw, he liked better and better. He went on for two hours, and did not even curse the flapping of his hat brim up and down before his eyes. For thirty years, more or less, Durfee had cursed a loosely flopping hat brim, but never could persuade himself to wear any other kind.

But on this afternoon he felt such a deep content flowing into him, with the wind and the sunshine and the green flash of the grass, that nothing mattered and nothing could rub his nerves the wrong way.

He could not help smiling, when he saw the cattle gathered under the wide arms of a tree, through which the heat of the midday could never strike. For he knew that restless noontides strip away the poundage of a cow. Peace and plenty make fat steers.

That was why he, perhaps, was so lean. He never had had plenty, and he never had had peace.

Now the valley narrowed a little, and the trees grew thicker. Even a lumberman would have liked the tall, straight look of the pines, and the way they stood together over the ground. Just right for clean, easy lumbering; it made his hands itch for the curved haft of an ax to fit into them!

He saw the house, now, set back among the trees to the right, with the clear green face of a slope running pleasantly down before it toward the creek. It was not too big, but it was big enough. It was not so close to the barns and the corrals that they were under the nose; on the other hand, it was not so far away that work would be made clumsy.

The intelligence that made this valley had brains, in the opinion of Durfee, and so had the men who were working it!

He was not sorry he had made the long ride. He wanted to work for the boss of this layout, even before he laid eyes on the man.

When he rode up and tethered his horse at the long hitching rack that ran before the house, he commented to himself on the good sense of this sort of a front garden. Others might have their silly garden plots, but a hitching rack was far better.

When he knocked on the front door, a Chinese came and opened it, and said that Mr. Bunce would see him; he had only to follow to the library.

That word did not please Durfee. He did not like books, and he had not much use for those who spent hours reading them. But the first glance at the “library” put him at ease. It was just the place to sit on a Sunday, mending bridles and swapping lies. There was a stove in the exact middle, and the fat belly of that stove had a big hollow pipe rail around it, designed by the creator for the heels of cow-punchers to rest against, while they warmed their souls in February weather. There was a big round table covered with newspapers and magazines, and the magazines had a well-worn look.

There was one stain on the fair face of this good weather. That was the little, twisted man who sat crookedly in his chair before a desk in a corner of the room. He looked as though he had just slumped into a freakish posture, the way a chair-weary man will do to stretch himself. But now Durfee saw that it was not a sudden movement, but that the poor fellow was permanently tied in this knot.

Said he: “I’m Silas Durfee. You sent down for me, if you’re Thomas Bunce.”

“I’m Thomas Bunce,” said the little man, craning his head over his shoulder and glowering at the figure in the door.

He added sharply: “Come in here and let me look at you without breaking my neck, will you?”

Most of the brightness departed from the day. Durfee was reasonably sure that he never could work for such a man, no matter in how ideal a place.

However, he walked in slowly, and stood near the desk.

“Sit down,” snapped the little man.

He sat down, his hat hanging from one hand.

“Put your hat on the table,” said Bunce.

“My hat’s resting pretty good the way it is,” said Durfee.

Bunce said: “Do as I tell you. You’re not nervous, are you?”

“I’m not nervous,” said Durfee, speaking more and more slowly. He made no move to obey the order.

“So Latham sent you up to me, did he?” said Bunce.

“It looks that way.”

“How old are you? Fifty-one—two?”

“I’m forty-five.”

“Five years ago you were.”

Durfee said nothing, his eyes grew suddenly obscure, and his mouth hardened.

“You’re forty-five, then,” said the little man. “I guess a man’s as old as he thinks he is, except when it comes to climbing mountains. Any good in mountains, you?”

“Not on foot,” said Durfee.

“Suppose you had to be on foot?”

“I don’t have to be on foot,” said Durfee.

“You might, if you worked for me.”

“Then I won’t work for you,” replied Durfee, in the most polite of tones.

The little man looked at him steadily. His mouth kept twitching to one side. In fact, his whole face was as lopsided as his body. “You live on the back of a horse, eh?” snapped Thomas Bunce.

“I’ve been on the back of a hoss a few times,” said Durfee.

“Why’d Latham send you up here to me?” asked Bunce, in irritation.

“That’s what I’m gunna ask him when I get back,” replied Durfee.

“You don’t like the place, eh? You don’t like the looks of the place? Is that it?”

He rattled out the words, snapping his fingers.

“Oh, the place is all right,” said Durfee.

“It’s me, is it?” said Bunce. “You’re one of these lightning calculators, are you? You can add up a man in five minutes, can you? You know all about me already, I suppose. You could teach them in the schools about me, could you?”

“I dunno that I’d apply for that teaching job, either,” said Durfee.

He stirred a little in the chair, getting more of his weight on his legs. He was ready to leave.

“Now, you’re through, are you? Now you’re going to back out, are you?” said Bunce. “I don’t know what Latham’s thinking about! He’s getting old. What did he mean by it? I asked him for—What can you do? Who are you?”

“I’m a man,” said Durfee, “by name of Durfee; age, forty-five; condition, single; weight, a hundred and sixty-five; height, five feet ten inches. I can eat three meals a day and sleep ten hours a night, if I get a chance.”

“Seven hours for a man, eight hours for a woman, nine hours for a child, and ten hours for a—You were in the Rangers, were you?”

“Yeah. I been there,” said Durfee.

“You were with the Texas Rangers, eh?”

“Yeah, I was with them.”

“What did you do there?”

“I was sort of roustabout and exercise boy,” said Durfee. “I carried water, and cut wood for the cook, and kind of tidied up around. I exercised the hosses, when they was getting fast and sassy, now and then. I was just generally useful all about.”

Bunce stared at him with bright, keen eyes.

“Somebody’s spoiled you,” he said. “Somebody’s ruined you. Somebody’s told you that you’re a wit. A dry wit. A dry wit really means a dried-up brain. You’re not funny. I’m asking you questions. I’m offering you a job. Yes, it’s a position. I’m talking to you about that. You want to make jokes; you want to be funny. Are you going to talk business, or not?”

“How much business you want to talk,” said Durfee.

“I want to talk you, first, and money second.”

“Well, go on and talk,” said Durfee, with a sigh. “I’ve rode a long way. I gotta rest before I start back, and I might as well rest my back while I work my jaw. Whacha wanta know?”

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2

“I want to know you. Durfee, can you ride a horse?” said the little man.

“I’ve been known to. I didn’t walk all the way up here,” said Durfee.

“I mean, can you ride a pitching bronco?”

“Sometimes I can, and sometimes I can’t.”

“Did you ever break horses for a living?”

“We’ve all been young and foolish,” said Durfee.

“You did work breaking wild horses?”

“Well, yes.”

“How long?”

“Why, off and on about eight years.”

“Humph!” said Bunce.

He turned his head and rattled the swift tips of his fingers on the top of the desk.

“Eight years?” he repeated, and cocked his head like a bird, to consider the answer.

Then he said: “You can shoot?”

“Yes.”

“Good?”

“I’m fair average.”

“How did you stack up in the Rangers?”

“Some were better at one thing; some at another.”

“But none of ’em beat you at everything, eh?”

Durfee scowled. “I wouldn’t say yes to that, and I wouldn’t say no,” said he, “unless there was a bet up.”

“Rifle and revolver, eh?” said Bunce.

“Yes, I’ve worn ’em both.”

“You’re not carrying a weapon now?”

“I wouldn’t say that I ain’t,” said Durfee.

“What sort of a weapon have you? A knife?”

“Yes, a knife, too,” said Durfee. “And this.”

A long-barreled Colt appeared in his hand.

“Humph!” said Bunce. “Where did you get that?”

“Right from under your eyes, Mr. Bunce.”

“Well, well,” said Bunce.

The revolver disappeared with a single gesture.

“You’re a gunman, are you?” said Bunce. “You’re one of these fellows who lives by his gun. Is that it?”

“I didn’t say that was it.”

“How many men have you killed?”

“None,” said Durfee.

“Look here, how long you been in the Rangers?”

“Well, lemme see. Twenty-two years.”

“What? Twenty-two years in the Rangers, and never killed a man?”

“No,” said Durfee.

“Well, well, well,” murmured Bunce. “You rode on active service for twenty-two years, and you had to chase everything from wild Indians to cattle thieves, and yeggs, but you never killed a man?”

“No, I never killed a man,” said Durfee.

“Did you ever arrest an armed man, though?”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“Me? Lemme see.”

His eyes grew dimmer still. He was looking back down the long years.

“Maybe three-four hundred. I wouldn’t trust myself on remembering. Maybe four hundred, take the average year by year.”

“You arrested four hundred men of all kinds?”

“Yes.”

“And didn’t kill one of them?”

“No.”

“Never fired on any of them?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Oh, you fired at ’em, and missed the vital spots, eh?”

“I didn’t miss the vital spots,” said Durfee. “I didn’t aim to hit the vital spots, as you call ’em.”

Bunce stood up suddenly. He looked smaller when he was on his feet. He hardly came to the head of Durfee, though the latter remained sitting.

“You’ve arrested four hundred armed men, and you’ve had gun fights, and you shot for legs and arms. Is that it?”

Durfee held up a thick, brown thumb.

“Take a slug this size,” said he, “and slam a man with it from close up, out of a Colt—how’s he gonna keep his feet? You tell me that?”

Bunce sat down again, directly facing the stranger.

“I believe you,” he said, though his voice cracked and snapped as before. “I believe you, because I know that Latham wouldn’t send me a liar, whatever else he sent. That’s all I want to talk about you. Now I’ll tell you what you’re to do.”

“Maybe you better talk about wages, first,” said the ex-Ranger. “That’s an interesting first page to any story that I’m in.”

“I’ll talk about wages last,” answered Bunce. “First, I’ll tell you what you’re to do. You’re to take my nephew in hand. My nephew’s name is Henry Vincent. He’s been East in school. He’s been there mostly for eight years, and he’s just come home. You’re to take him in hand.”

Durfee was silent.

“You’re to ride with him, hunt with him, and work the cows with him—you gunman, you, you know one end of a cow from the other?”

“I been told there’s a difference,” said Durfee.

“What State you born in?”

“Wyoming.”

“On the range?”

“Mostly born on the range,” said Durfee.

“Lived there?”

“Till I was twenty-three.”

“Then you know cows.”

“I been introduced to ’em,” said Durfee. “But I never had any talent for raisin’ the young.”

“No?”

“No. Never.”

“You’ll try your hand with this one, though,” said Bunce, irritated again. “And you’ll do this for him—you’ll see that he never has a quarrel with another man and that he never gets into the saddle on a bucking horse, or a horse that’s likely to buck; you’ll never let him taste alcohol and never handle a revolver. If you go hunting with him, you’ll give him long shots, and few of them, and you’ll discourage him in practicing with guns.

“You’ll see that he gets to bed early and rises early, too. You’ll go fishing with him and riding with him; you’ll keep him amused in that way. If you have stories to tell, first and foremost, you’ll avoid all tales of bloodshed, and the very mention of the word ‘Ranger’ is now taboo!”

He struck his bony fist upon the desk.

“You don’t need me,” said Durfee, shaking his head. “No, all that you need is a broken-down old maid about seventy years old that can still handle a right-smart darning needle and talk the jaw right off its hinges. She’d be better company for the pet boy you’re aiming to raise up around here. I wouldn’t put my hand to the spoiling of a man, like that.”

“You’ll do what I tell you to do,” said the other. “Don’t argue with me. I hate argument. I detest it. I’ve only started to tell you what your duties are. The most important half has not been mentioned.”

“Go right on,” said Durfee, “and make it big and hard, will you?”

“You’ll find it big and hard enough,” said Bunce, with a sneer. “For what you are to do, above all, is to use your eyes and your brains to keep away from my nephew a slender man with a long, dark face, a broken nose and a twisted smile—a man about six feet tall and looking like a bird that’s about to drop a field mouse.”

The ex-Ranger straightened. “You interest me,” said he. “This fellow, might he have a little crisscross scar over his right eye?”

“Yes. You know him?” asked Bunce hopefully.

“That’s Spot Lester, unless I’m dreaming,” said Durfee. “Yeah, him and me, we’re old friends.”

“How? Friends?”

“Yes, friends. We’ve talked together quite a lot, sometimes a few words, more knife work, and quite a lot of guns.”

“Ah-hah!” said Bunce. “You’ve trailed and fought that man, have you?”

“Yeah. I’ve done that.”

“Well, then,” said Bunce, in great excitement, “what I want you to do now is to kill him! That’s your job. That’s your main task!”

“Thanks very much,” said Durfee.

He stood up. “I’ve had a mighty fine little chat with you,” said Durfee, “but I gotta be starting back before the day gets much older. I hope you have a lot of fun with Spot Lester. Because there’s a lot of fun in him.”

“Hold on! You back out?” cried Bunce.

“You bet I back out.”

“You mean to say,” cried Bunce, “that you’re afraid of that man?”

“Yeah, I mean to say it,” said Durfee. “I’m scared to death of him. He’s licked me good and proper three times, and he’s left his marks on me, too. I’m scared of him, and I don’t want the job. So long!”

He got almost to the door, and then he was stopped by a voice that called out shrilly: “This job is a hundred dollars a week to you, you fool!”

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3

Said the other: “A hundred dollars a week is fine, fat pay. But I wouldn’t be working for myself. I’d be working for the undertaker.”

Said Bunce: “Man, you don’t realize. If you can kill Spot Lester, you’ll get a bonus. You’ll get several thousand dollars in spot cash. You understand?”

“I understand,” said the ex-Ranger. “But I’m not interested.”

He jerked the words out savagely. “I don’t want anything more to do with the idea.”

He strode through the door.

“A five-thousand bonus,” said Bunce.

In the doorway, Durfee turned. His face was working.

“Curse the bonus, and you along with it,” said he.

“Ten thousand! Ten thousand dollars in spot cash!” said Bunce, “if you happen to kill him—and a hundred dollars a week, and every possible expense paid, during the time that you work for me!”

Durfee took hold of the edge of the door and braced himself.

“I won’t take it!” he muttered.

Bunce began to grin with a sort of fiendish delight.

“You’ll take the job, my friend,” said he.

“Ten thousand dollars?” said Durfee. His face was puckered with desire and with fear.

“Ten thousand dollars!” said the other.

Durfee loosened his bandanna, though it was already free enough around his throat.

“You get another man,” he suggested. “You can get heaps of ’em. You go and get a better than me.”

“You ride,” chanted Bunce, twisting in his chair, as though he enjoyed the torment of temptation into which he had thrown the other. “You ride, you know the range, you shoot. There’s nobody among the Rangers who averages better with rifle and revolver. You said so yourself!”

“I didn’t say so,” said Durfee.

“On a bet, you’d shoot against any of them! You said that!”

Durfee sat down in a chair, lowering himself wretchedly into it.

“I’ve gone and let myself in,” he muttered. “Look, Bunce. You take ten thousand dollars—and how much land could a man get right around here? What does it cost an acre?”

“Mostly this around here runs to thirty and forty dollars,” said Bunce. “But I see what you mean. You’ve reached the time of life when every man with any sense wants to settle down. You want some land. You want to work your own cows. Am I right?”

Durfee ran his thick fingers through his stiffly curling, iron-gray hair.

“Yeah, I’ve been dreaming about it, mostly all my life. I’ve got eight hundred dollars, or something like that, together. That’s all. Worked since I was fifteen. Thirty years, and I’ve got eight hundred dollars. That shows the sort of brains I have.”

“You know what I’ll do?” said the rancher, “I’ll sell you some of my own best land, when this game is finished. And I’ll sell it to you for twenty dollars an acre. You can pick up two hundred and fifty acres for five thousand dollars. Land good enough to farm, and to repay careful working. And that’ll leave you five thousand to stock up with cows. Yes, and I’ll let you pick ’em out of my own herd—the weaker ones at half price. You see what I’ll do? I’ll pay you ten thousand dollars in cash, but I’ll turn that money into twenty thousand dollars in opportunity and land and cattle. Look here, Durfee, you’re only forty-five. You’ve got thirty years ahead of you. Before the end of that time, you may own twenty thousand acres. It can be done. You know the business. You love the range. Men like you can’t help succeeding, once you get a start!”

Now, as he poured out this excited stream of words, Durfee twisted and writhed in his chair.

“I tell you what I told you before,” said he. “I don’t belong in the same room with that fellow, Spot Lester. I’m not on the same street with him. He’s faster with his guns, and straighter. He’s even faster with his brains, and crookeder. He beats me every way from the start. I wouldn’t have a chance against him.”

“You’ll have a chance,” said the rancher, “because you’ll have everything that money can do for you to help out. You take the job?”

“Wait a minute,” said the other, “how could Lester do any harm if he came close to your nephew? Does he wanta kill the kid?”

“No, he doesn’t want to kill him. He wants him to kill himself, and cut his own throat.”

“Hold on!” protested Durfee.

“I mean what I say.”

“I don’t understand what you say, though.”

“You don’t have to. You take it for granted. I’m right. All you have to do is to take my word for it—and keep Lester away from the boy!”

“This here boy,” said Durfee, scowling to keep a more contemptuous expression of distaste from his lips, “this here kid, that ain’t to be allowed to ride no rough horses, nor to bulldog yearlings, likely, nor throw steers, nor handle guns much, nor nothing like that—what kind of a person might he shape up to be?”

“You shake hands on the job and then I’ll send for him.”

“You send for him first and I’ll shake on the job afterward—maybe,” said Durfee.

Without a word, the little man at the desk banged on a gong. The slippered feet of the Chinese came at a run.

“Get Henry!” commanded Bunce.

The Chinese disappeared from the doorway.

“How long has this Spot Lester been hanging around?” asked Durfee.

“He hasn’t been hanging around, but he will be, within a day or so, before my nephew has been home for a week.”

“Humph!” said Durfee. “You want me to work in the dark, do you?”

“That’s where you’ll have to work,” answered Bunce.

“I don’t like it,” said Durfee.

“You like ten thousand dollars, and this sort of land at twenty dollars an acre. That’s what you like!” declared Bunce, with conviction, and Durfee could not reply.

He heard Bunce saying: “This combination is going to work out! I know it is. I feel it in my bones. I’m not a superstitious man, but today I feel lucky. I send for you. I don’t like the look of you. And then it turns out that you’re an ex-Ranger, and that you’re a gun expert, that you’ve handled badmen all your life almost; and finally you know all about Spot Lester.”

“Don’t go wrong on that,” answered Durfee. “Nobody knows all about Spot Lester. Nobody ever will. A man can’t know a cross between a poison snake and a fox!”

“For fifteen years,” said the other, “he’s committed every crime in the calendar. He’s wanted in every state west of the Mississippi, and in most of them east of the same river. He’s wanted everywhere, but he’s the only man with such a record who hasn’t spent the majority of his life in jail.”

“He’s never had a day in jail, he’s never had a conviction,” said Durfee. “His record is a lot cleaner than mine.”

“They’d hang him for fifty murders,” said Bunce.

“Yes, they’d hang him fifty times just to begin with, but they’ll never get him in prison.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’ll die, first.”

“How does he work it? Has he so many friends?”

“Nobody knows,” answered Durfee. “He may work a lone hand, and he may work with a gang. How are we to tell? Men who work with him are not likely to go about bragging about their friends. And no stool pigeon would have the nerve to squeal on friend Lester, until Lester’s dead!”

Here a quick, strong step approached the room, and a youngster of twenty-one or two came in, a big young man with a brown face and with very quiet, large gray eyes.

He was what Durfee called a heavyweight above and a middleweight below. He looked powerful enough to lift a horse and fleet enough to sprint. No athletic coach in the world could have glanced at him without joy. He had the wrist of a fencer and the step of a tennis player, and wrestler’s neck and shoulders. And Durfee, who really knew men, filled his eye with this picture.

“I want you to meet my friend, Durfee,” said Bunce. “This is my nephew, Henry Vincent.”

They shook hands, and Durfee looked up into the eyes and thought that he saw there the answer, the flaw. For there was no gleam in them. They were contented and complacent. They were like the eyes of an ox in the field. The mouth, too, was like the mouth of a child—too full, too regularly and easily curved. The tension of manhood, the strain of effort had never stiffened those lips or made those nostrils flare.

Said Bunce: “I think I’m persuading Durfee to take charge of you, Henry. He’s going to show you how to fish and hunt and ride. You want to know the mountains, and he’ll show them to you. From the back of a horse, because he has tender feet!”

He laughed a little, and then added abruptly: “That’s all!”

Henry Vincent smiled faintly at Durfee and went from the room, and Durfee watched the step, easy, free, perfectly balanced. When the boy was gone, he turned toward Bunce.

“Well?” said the rancher.

“Well,” said Durfee slowly, “now that I’ve seen him, I think that I’d do it for nothing. Not that I’d refuse that ten thousand bucks either!”

He held out his hand and, as the little man grasped it, Durfee said: “But what’s wrong with him? He’s not like others. What’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” said Bunce sharply, “and you’re to keep anything wrong from happening!”

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 4

Despite the assurance of Bunce that there was nothing wrong, a far duller man than Durfee and one with much less experience could have told instantly that something was wrong, and decidedly wrong.

Otherwise, for instance, he, the guard of the young fellow, would surely have been told why the malignancy of Spot Lester should follow young Vincent, and why it was that he wished to harm the boy. Sheer trifling desire to do mischief was not one of the usual features of Lester’s work. Cash, or revenge, or some other motive prompted his exploits.

No, Lester had some motive which brought him on the trail of young Henry Vincent, and Durfee did his best to find out what it might be, for he rather naturally thought that, once he mastered the motive for crime, he might be able the better to check the crime itself.

But he could not learn a word from the rancher who was employing him.

His repeated inquiries during the days that followed met with silence, and finally with a blunt command that he was to hold his tongue on the subject.

He tried the other men who were working on the ranch with no better results.

They knew nothing about young Henry Vincent. They simply were told that he was the nephew of their employer. They never had seen him on the ranch before. Neither did they know anything about the father of the boy. Vincent and his ancestors were a blank in their minds.

As for Bunce himself, they knew that he had come into the community fifteen years before, a man in all essentials exactly as he was today, nervous, keen, sharp-tempered, shunning the society of his peers, living alone with his work. He had brought with him a large amount of money and a very thorough knowledge of how cattle should be worked.

Then he had succeeded in picking out an excellent site for his operations, and for fifteen years he had used money, industry, and exceptional intelligence to swell his fortunes. He was the sort of fellow who knew when to hold the crop of baled hay until the middle of winter, when he sold it at a vast profit; he seemed to know when to skip a year of light prices, and unload a double number of beeves when the price climbed up again. And besides a superior intelligence, he seemed to have luck always on his side.

Naturally, he was not a man to be envied, on account of his surpassing physical misfortunes; but somehow his neighbors got into the habit of buying and selling when he led the way.

As for friends, he had none. His manners were harsh, and his soul seemed acrid and sour beneath the exterior. Yet he made, the punchers insisted, an excellent boss. He was always riding out over the range, sitting humped painfully sidewise on his horse, but he used his eyes for his own purposes, not to find fault with the operations of his men.

Sluggards and fools were instantly discharged. But a fellow with normal intelligence and willingness to do his share was not blamed for stampedes or other accidents; his pay was up to the right standard; and there was always an ample staff for the work in hand. Punchers who had labored on worse places—and who among them had not?—declared that this was the sort of paradise for the cowhand.

So when they found that their employer was uncommunicative, they sympathized and shut their mouths and attended to their own concerns. They strongly suggested to Mr. Durfee that it would be better for all concerned if he should imitate their example.

That was all very well for them, but they did not have to keep the figure of Spot Lester in the backs of their minds, and Durfee did. And the thought of the great criminal haunted him continually.

He knew well enough why Lester continued to break the laws and defy them with impunity and much profit. It was because the man combined with a shrewd intellect, a character incapable of remorse, pity, friendship, or affection. He was never rash from overswelling courage. He never rushed into danger for the love of it. Instead, he hunted like a cat, always cautious, bright of eye, suspicious. The waving of a blade of grass could make him pause, but fifty armed guards could not turn him back, eventually, from his purpose.

As secret as a cat’s paw, and as dangerous, he glided about his mischief like a shadow. And because scruples never encumbered him, he made swift and successful way always. He had been thwarted, to be sure, but never once had he actually been brought to account.

It was not by cleverness or superior adroitness with weapons that Durfee hoped eventually that he might thwart the prowler; it was simply by luck that he hoped to win out. But he wanted, in the first place, to take every possible measure of prevention. In time of peace he wanted to prepare for war.

What made the thing most trying was that the great criminal gave no sign that he was near. It was true that Bunce gave repeated warning that Spot Lester must now be at hand, watching like a cat before the kill, but there was no token of a prowler.

And day by day, Durfee went on with this ridiculously easy and pleasant work.

He rose when he felt like it and breakfasted on fried trout or similar dainties from the mountain stream. Then he went out to the big corral and sat on the fence, and with a casual glance, picked over the dozen animals which were exclusively reserved for his use and the boy’s.

Here Henry Vincent would be found. Apparently he rose at the break of day and, according to the cook, after eating his breakfast he went straight out to the corral and waited there for his companion.

He would not be leaning against the fence, or sitting on a convenient tree stump, but standing erect, easily, never weary or discomposed even though he might have been waiting there, the cook swore, for as much as an hour! And he would greet Durfee with the same half bland and half blank look, and the same meaningless smile.

The cow-punchers made up their minds about him quickly.

They said: “The poor kid’s a dummy. But that ain’t his fault.”

Then they forgot about him. Fools are not plagued for their folly in the great West, unless they make themselves obnoxious. And young Henry Vincent never seemed aware of the existence of others more than he was aware of trees and mountains; of himself, as well, he seemed to take no thought!

For he cared not what he wore, or what horse he rode, or what rifle was put into his hands. He was willing to walk, or willing to ride. He would climb a mountain as readily as he would stroll over a green meadow. He would hold the horses patiently for hours, while Durfee worked out a trail problem; and he bore messages, chopped wood when a fire was wanted as they camped out; and in all ways he comported himself like a roustabout.

What was in him?

There seemed no ambition, no looking forward from one day to the next, or even from one hour to the next hour.

Once, Durfee asked Bunce how the boy had done in school, and was told curtly that it was none of his blamed business. That was, in fact, the last question that he had cared to ask.

After all, it was the easiest and the pleasantest task that he had ever taken on his hands. He got a hundred dollars a week. And as for Spot Lester, well, when he turned up there would be a chance of earning ten thousand dollars in hard cash, or twice that much in the sort of property which he most wanted in this world.