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something held him back. It was the man himself.
It was Clay Bell, and something in his manner. Bell was neither alarmed nor
excited. He gave no indication of any emotion. He just waited for Devitt to
move.
Jud Devitt had the feeling suddenly that to Clay Bell this was old, not new.
That he played a game in which all the moves were clear-cut and definite,
while Devitt himself was uncertain.
"All right," he said finally, "you've stopped me. But I'll log off Deep Creek
if it has to be over your dead body!"
He turned his horse but Bell's voice arrested his movement. "Devitt?"
"What?"
"What about your dead body?"
Devitt stared at Bell and suddenly within him there was that cold
realization, something that had never really occurred to him before he might
be killed himself! It was preposterous, and yet. . .
"Colleen? Are you riding with us?"
She swung into her saddle and rode to the gate which Bell held open. "Be
careful," she whispered. "I know him. He'll stop at nothing!"
At the foot of the grade Jud Devitt stopped beside the wagons. "Hold the
wagons," he told Williams. "We'll go up to the plateau later."
"Better send us a chuckwagon. We've only a little grub."
"You won't camp here!" Clay Bell sat the saddle of the appalousa. "This is
still my land, Devitt. I'll allow no camping. I'll give you no legal ground at
all. Now get rolling! Get back of that white boulder. That's my property
line."
Devitt's face was white. "I'll be damned if I !"
"Move back." There was no comfort in Bell's expression. "Start now or I'll
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shoot every head of stock on my land. Get started."
Devitt waved a hand at his men. His face was stiff with fury. "Roll 'em back!
Let him have his fun!" He turned on Bell. "You're piling up trouble for
yourself!" he said. "I'll see "
"Move!" Bell repeated. He pushed his horse forward, shouldering his appalousa
against Devitt's horse.
Devitt hesitated, his face ugly and mottled; then, never taking his eyes from
those of Bell, he backed up until across the line marked by the white boulder.
Promptly, and without a backward glance, Clay Bell swung his horse and
cantered up the trail to the ranch house. Jud Devitt stared after him, swore
bitterly, then turned his horse toward town. He did not speak to Colleen as
they rode along.
He had come off the loser in his first meeting with Bell, but there would be
another time . . . another time. . .
"Jud?"
"Oh . . . sorry, Colleen, I'm afraid I wasn't thinking. This mess irritates
me."
"Why don't you leave it, Jud? Get the timber another place."
He smiled at her to cover his irritation. "You leave that to me, Colleen.
It's my problem."
She rode beside him in silence. She could see he was determined. He was too
stubborn to leave now.
"Jud he'll fight."
"Of course."
"Men will be killed. Doesn't that matter to you?"
"It matters, of course it matters. But one man can't stand in the way of
progress. That railroad must go through!"
"You could get the ties elsewhere."
"At greater expense. At greater loss of time. They are here, I mean to have
them."
He was scarcely aware of her protests. Already his mind was leaping ahead,
trying to find some way to get around this trouble. There might be another
route to the Deep Creek range, to both the valley and the plateau. He must
talk to Wheeler.
Colleen maintained her silence. The air was cooler now, as they neared town.
Dipping down to where the trail ran along the creek, she felt the breeze off
the stream, and from the desert willows. She slowed her pace, remembering
Clay.
His features were clear-cut, brown from sun and wind. There was something,
too, in the way he walked . . . and she had noticed what had impressed Jud
Devitt. Clay Bell had not been worried at the thought of trouble. He had
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wasted no words, indulged in no violent talk. Yet he had won he had forced Jud
Devitt to back up.
And Jud Devitt would never forgive him.
Chapter 6
Jud Devttt found Noble Wheeler in the dining room of the Tinker House. He
drew back a chair and dropped into it, coldly furious. "Noble, why didn't you
tell me that Clay Bell owned Emigrant Gap?"
Noble Wheeler gripped his fork tightly in one hand, his knife in the other,
both big fists resting on the table-top, his big jaws chomping his food like a
restless horse over a cold bit. There was no denying the astonishment in his
eyes. "What? Did you say owned?"
He put a chunk of beef in his mouth, staring blankly at his plate. Bell owned
Emigrant Gap! But that. . .
"He claims he has title to it. Refuses me right-of-way."
"Never guessed he'd be that smart." Wheeler was thinking now. This could
change everything, ruin his carefully laid plans. "Changes a lot of things."
"Is there another way up?"
"Through The Notch. T'other side of the plateau."
"Does he own that?" Devitt was sarcastic.
"Maybe. We'll find out."
Devitt pushed back his chair and waved the waitress away. "I'm wiring Chase.
If we get our grant on that timber we can force him to give us right-of-way."
"And if you don't?"
Devitt's lips thinned and his eyes looked their dislike at Wheeler. "I'll go
in, anyway. No damned cowhand will stop me!"
He did not, Devitt decided, like Wheeler. But he did not have to like him.
The banker was tough and shrewd; he had something cooking in his mind that
Devitt had not been told. He watched the fat man chomp his food. He was a
noisy eater, a glutton. Devitt got up, distaste suddenly sharp within him.
Without a word he walked away from the table and went outside. Suppose he did
not get the grant? Then he would have no legal ground under him at all. Yet
Bell's cattle would have to be worked, and he could not keep all his men on
guard all the time. There might be still a third way into the Deep Creek area.
His thoughts reverted to the grant. He could not back out now, he would not.
Grant or no grant, he would have that timber. With Bell busy, there would be a
way to get at him. Once they had the timber it wouldn't matter.
He lit a cigar and considered the situation. Cripple Bell. Stop him cold.
That was the first thing. It was to be an all-out fight then.
Wheeler's astonishment at the discovery of Bell's ownership had been genuine.
Yet there had been something more. Devitt rolled his cigar in his jaws. What
did the banker have up his sleeve? Something . . . but what? Jud Devitt had a
feeling he was being used as a cat's-paw, and it was a feeling he did not
like.
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Bob Tripp came up the street, pausing briefly in the door of a saloon across
the street. Jud stepped to the edge of the walk. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]