Andy's eyebrows rose. "Yu think he's courtin' yu?" he gasped incredulously. "Why, he's a breed. Ain't Reuben showed him the door?"
"He sings praises; I think he's afraid of him in some way," Tonia replied.
"My Gawd!" the young man exploded. "Seth Raven shinin' up to yu--a Sarel? Well, if that ain't the frozen limit." He looked at her closely. "Yu still don't like the fella, Tonia?"
"I detest him," was her emphatic reply. "To me he always suggests what they call him, 'The Vulture,' rapacious, cruel, a bird of prey."
For some time the rancher rode in moody silence; he was getting a new angle on the man he had hitherto regarded as a good sort. The seeds of doubt sown in his mind by the marshal were beginning to germinate, fed by this latest factor. Had the note been tampered with? Was the breaking up of his drive herd the word of the 88? He recalled the poker game, in which he had a shrewd suspicion that Green had saved him from being skinned--for he now knew that Pardoe was a not too scrupulous professional gambler. Were these all part of a plan to put a rival out of the running? The questions milled in his mind and he could find no satisfactory answers. It was the girl who spoke first:
"Too bad to bother you with my little troubles, Andy. Especially when you have bigger ones of your own."
"Shucks! I hope yu'll allus come to me, Tonia, Yu know I'd do anythin'."
There was an undercurrent of feeling in the voice and the girl steered from the subject. "You drive to-morrow?" she asked.
"Yeah. I've got a good bunch--all hand-picked--an' if I lose 'em this time I'll be comin' to yu for a job, Tonia."
For an instant she looked at him in startled surprise, but his grin reassured her, and she replied in the same vein: "What sort of job would you like, Andy? But there, you'll make it this trip; bad luck, like lightning, never strikes twice in the same place."
The soft, sweet voice and the heartening warm smile in her eyes were almost irresistible; he ached to take her in his arms and tell her that the job he wanted was to care for and shield her all the days of his life. But his man's pride kept him silent. When he came back, his ranch cleared of debt--
So the golden moment passed.
CHAPTER XVII
The marshal's return to Lawless excited a great deal of curiosity which had to remain unsatisfied. His own explanation was that he had been absent on business connected with his office, and he treated any suggestion that he had been kidnapped by El Diablo with a tolerant smile, an attitude which aroused Pete's personal wrath.
"What's the grand idea?" he enquired. "Here's me workin' up a case agin the Greaser an' yu percolate in an' knock it flat. Makes me look a fool."
"I can't see that yore appearance has altered the littlest bit," the marshal told him, with that disarming grin of his. "We gotta walk in the water, ol'-timer; yu watch Raven's face when I say my little piece."
They had not long to wait, for the saloon-keeper came in soon afterwards.
"'Lo, marshal, so yo're back again all safe an' sound," he began, with a crooked smile. "We've shore bin some worried 'bout yu. Barsay here, reckoned yu'd bin carried off by Moraga."
"Hold yore hosses, Raven, it sticks in my mind that suggestion come from yu," the deputy protested.
"That so? Well, mebbe yo're right," Raven admitted easily. "Yore high-falutin' yarn made it seem likely."
"Pete's a born romancer," the marshal said. "Hear him tell of his past an' yu look for his wings."
"So it warn't the Greaser?" Raven asked.
"Senor Moraga has not yet settled his little account with me," Green smiled, adding, "I've been at the Box B."
This was not all the truth, but it served, for the marshal saw the visitor's eyes widen. All he said, however, was:
"Andy's drivin' to-day, I hear. Where's he campin' this time?"
"Same place as before, I understand. It's a good beddin' ground an' he reckons there ain't no storms around."
Raven nodded. "Weather seems likely to stay put," he agreed.
When he had gone Pete turned aggressively on his chief. "Why d'yu tell him where Andy was campin'?" he asked.
"I didn't," the marshal grinned.
"But--" the deputy began, and then comprehension came to him and he grinned too.
"Awright, Solomon," the little man said. "What yu goin' to do now?"
"Put some money in the bank," Green told him.
Barsay dropped into the nearest chair. "Savin' coin, the hawg, an' me with a thirst," he ejaculated in mock horror. "Wonder which of us he can't trust, me or the Injun?"
To which query he got no reply, the marshal being already on the way to execute his financial errand. Arrived outside the bank he hung about until he saw the clerk emerge and then entered. As he had hoped, Potter was alone. He took the money Green tendered and wrote out a receipt.
"Ain't got on the track of that outlaw yet, I suppose?" he remarked, and when his customer admitted that his supposition was correct, he added, "I was saying to Raven yesterday that you hadn't much to go on, and that probably he's hundreds of miles away by now."
"Raven is a hard man to satisfy," the marshal stated.
"You are right," the banker agreed harshly. "He's--" he paused suddenly, and then, in an altered tone, went on, "a good customer, and I ought not to be discussing him, but I know you won't chatter, marshal."
Having assured him on that point, Green came away, wondering. A comparison of the receipt with the mysterious note showed a similarity in the writing; they might have been done by the same person, but why, Green asked himself, should the banker help Moraga? For the rest, all he had discovered was that Potter disliked but feared Raven, an attitude common to many of the citizens of Lawless. Additional proof of this was afforded that same evening. The marshal was nearing the bank when he heard Seth's voice, and, curious as to his business there so late, slipped round the corner of the building and waited. In a moment the door opened and he heard the banker say, in. a tone of abject humility:
"I'll do as you wish, sir."
"Yu'd better," the saloon-keeper said contemptuously, and went up the street.
From his door the banker watched until the other was out of hearing and then his pent-up bitterness burst its bonds:
"And may God damn your rotten soul," he hissed, and shook his fist at the retreating figure.
Not until the door slammed did the marshal resume his way. One thing the incident told him--Potter was in The Vulture's power, and might therefore have been compelled to write the decoy message.
"Odd number that," he ruminated. "The banker is a bet I mustn't overlook."
* * *
A week slid by and the marshal was no nearer the solution of the problem he had set himself to solve. Though there had been no further activity on the part of Sudden the Second, Green did not agree with Potter's suggestion that the outlaw had departed for fresh pastures; the black horse was still in its hiding-place. In the meanwhile, he had plenty to occupy his mind. Two attempts had been made on his life, and though he believed that the saloon-keeper had something to do with them, he had no proof. Since his escape from death in the desert, the autocrat of Lawless had treated him with jovial friendliness, a circumstance which aroused suspicion in the object of it. So marked indeed was the change that Pete was moved to caustic comment.
"If yu was a turkey I'd say he was fattenin' yu up for the killin'," the deputy said. "Looks like Andy has made it this time."
The marshal nodded. "Jevons was at the Red Ace last night," he said. "An' his boss didn't seem none pleased 'bout somethin'."
Green's guess was a good one. The 88 foreman had come on an unpleasant errand--the admission of his own failure, and that this was due to wrong information supplied by his employer, though it would have excused him with most men, did not do so with Raven.