Sudden saw the man's face whiten under the tan, sensed the passion that was urging him to pull his gun and shoot Purdie then and there, and realized that only his own presence prevented it. For a brief moment Burdette fought his fury, and then came an ugly snarclass="underline" "Yu take the pot--this time, but I'll get yu, yore ranch, an' yore girl, Purdie, even if yu pack yore place with two-gunmen."
With a glare at Sudden he swaggered from the verandah, sprang into the saddle, and spurred his horse down the trail. The marshal would have spoken, but a contemptuous gesture from the cattleman stopped him.
"Get agoin'," Purdie said. "Yore master will be whistlin' for yu."
When the pair had vanished, the ranch-owner turned and looked at his foreman. "What yu think of it?" he asked.
"I reckon yu got their measure," was the reply. "Funny 'bout them cattle, though; I don't believe he knowed of 'em."
Purdie laughed incredulously. "When yu savvy the Burdettes as well as I do, yu'll figure 'em at the back o' most o' the dirty work around here," he said. "Anyways, they know what I think of 'em. King would 'a' drawed on me if yu hadn't been here."
The puncher's eyes twinkled. "Yeah, but I was, an' not bein' a fool, he didn't forget it," he replied.
"What d'yu guess'll be their first move?"
"I expect they'll try to abolish that two-gun hombre King mentioned."
The rancher's face grew grave. "Jim, I'd no right to rope yu into my trouble--this ain't no ordinary foreman's job," he said. "If yu wanta reconsider..."
"Forget it, seh," Sudden smiled. "I came here knowin', an' when I start anythin' I aim to finish it."
Purdie's relief was evident. In declaring war on the Circle B he had relied greatly upon the aid of this lean-jawed, level-eyed stranger, of whom he knew nothing and yet trusted implicitly.
Chapter IX
IN the big, littered living-room at the Circle B that same evening four men sat in conference--King Burdette, his brothers Mart and Sim, and one of their outfit. This last had an arresting appearance. Between thirty-five and forty years of age, of slight build, he had one remarkable feature --a skin, which even the fierce sun of the South-west could not colour; his clean-shaven face was white, the unhealthy, sickly white of something grown in darkness, and in this deathly pallor were set blue eyes like polished stones, un-winking, expressionless. "Whitey"--for so the man was known--never smiled, his face might have been a marble mask, but lacked the dignity of the carven stone. He wore two guns, and his long, talon-like fingers were never far from their butts.
"Well, boys, I saw Purdie this mornin' an'--like I guessed--he's all set for war--wouldn't listen to nothin' else," King began, and grinned. "Slippery was there, by chance, o' course. That puts us right with Windy; Chris won't get no sympathy there. So we can go ahead."
"An' with Kit outa the way there shouldn't be no difficulty," Mart added.
"There's on'y one, far's I can see," King rejoined. "Purdie has scooped in that two-gun stranger, Green, an' made him foreman. I'm tellin' yu this; he's got a good one."
"We oughta've gathered him in ourselves," Sim stated.
"I tried to, but Purdie had beat me to it," the elder brother told him. "Mark me, that fella means trouble for us; twice he's got Luce out of a jam--if it hadn't been for him that young fool would 'a' been off our hands for good. There's another thing; he claims to have found a bunch o' cattle with the C P brand changed to Circle B, penned up on Purdie's range. Any o' yu know about it?"
They all shook their heads. "Odd number that," Mart said. "Our boys wouldn't do it without orders. An' why leave 'em there?"
"It'll need lookin' into, but can wait." King decided. "The main point is what we goin' to do about Green?"
"Leave him to me," Whitey said.
Callous as they were, the cold, passionless voice sent a shiver through the others; they sensed an eagerness to slay for the sake of slaying--for they knew his proposal meant nothing less than death. Whitey was a killer of the worst type--one who sold his dexterity to the highest bidder, and regarded the taking of human life as no more important than twisting the neck of a chicken.
"He totes a coupla guns an' we don't know how good he is with 'em," King observed.
"If he can beat me to the draw he'll do what twelve other fellas failed at," the killer replied darkly.
"Thirteen's an unlucky number, Whitey," Sim commented.
"Shore will be--for him," came the grim retort. "I'll be in town to-night; mebbe meet up with him."
King shook his head. "We gotta wait a week at least," he decided. "To do it sooner would be a fair giveaway."
"Well, what's a week, anyways?" the gunman grimaced. "He'll be a long whiles dead. It'll cost yu boys five hundred."
The "boys" nodded agreement, regarding him curiously. They had no illusions about the man, being well aware that he would have undertaken to destroy any one of them for a sufficient sum.
"Yo're a cold-blooded devil, Whitey," Mart said. "One o' these days yu'll tumble up against a fella who's a mite quicker'n yu are, an' then..."
The killer's thin, pale lips twisted a little, which, in him, signified amusement. "I've met that fella," he said. "Yes, sir, some years ago, way down in Texas. He warn't much more'n a boy, but his draw was a shinin' merricle. I was reckoned fast, but he left me standin' still. Had an odd trick o' speaking his piece, half turnin' away, an' the next yu knowed he had yu covered."
"He let yu off, Whitey?" King queried, with lifted eyebrows.
"He let me off, yeah, when he had me set," the gunman said. "I'll never forgive him for that." In his voice was a bitter hate for the man who had allowed him to live. "Said I looked sick, an' I'll bet I did too, an' that a spell o' travel would be good for my health."
"So yu--travelled?" King said, with almost a jeer.
The other appeared not to notice it. "I took the trail," he admitted. "I ain't seen him since, an' dunno as I'd reckernize him--a few years make a big difference in a young chap, an' there warn't nothin' special 'bout him --just a ordinary puncher to look at. But I've heard tell of him."
"What was his name?" Sim asked.
"Never knowed it, but they was beginnin' to call him `Sudden' down there, an', by God! they got him right," Whitey replied.
Sudden! Even to this far corner of Arizona the young gunman's reputation for cold courage and marvellous marksmanship had penetrated. The faint satirical smiles which their companion's recital of his discomfiture had produced faded from the faces of his hearers. Mart expressed the feelings of all when, with a low whistle, he said :
"Sudden. Huh? Whitey, I reckon yu did right to--travel."
Despite the fact that matters between the two ranches had apparently reached a crisis, a week passed without anything happening, and Windy wondered. Old-timers wagged their heads significantly and spoke of the proverbial calm before the storm. For Luce Burdette the period was one of growing discomfort. The attitude of his family, supported by the known facts, caused many to believe he had slain Kit Purdie, and though Sudden's quick-wittedness should have cleared him, in the minds of reasonable men, of robbing Evans, there were some who still doubted. Also, King Burdette had made it plain that friendship with his discarded brother would mean enmity with him, and the displeasure of the Circle B, with its band of hard, unscrupulous riders, was not to be incurred lightly.
Entirely ignored by most of the citizens, and avoided as much as possible by others he had deemed his friends, the young man grew daily more despondent. Several times he had ridden to the little glade in the hope of seeing Nan Purdie, only to be disappointed. Bitterly he concluded that, like the rest, she had come to believe in his guilt. In this he wronged her. More than once Nan had found herself heading for the meeting-place, and had spurred her pony in another direction. There came a morning, however, when, obeying an impulse which brought the blood to her cheeks, she rode resolutely along the old trail and through the opening into the glade. Her heart leapt when she saw someone sitting on the fallen trunk, head bent, elbows on knees, apparently deep in thought. Lest he should deem her there on purpose, she rode with face averted, pretending not to have seen him. Then came a voice which shocked the gladness out of her.