Ronicky Doone Part 12

"I am not who?" asked the girl with amazing steadiness. But he saw her hand go back to the dressing table and open, with incredible deftness and speed, the little top drawer behind her.

"Don't do that!" said Ronicky softly, but sharply. "Keep your hand off that table, lady, if you don't mind."

She hesitated a fraction of a second. In that moment she seemed to see that he was in earnest, and that it would be foolish to tamper with him.

"Stand away from that table; sit down yonder."

Again she obeyed without a word. Her eyes, to be sure, flickered here and there about the room, as though they sought some means of sending a warning to her friends, or finding some escape for herself. Then her glance returned to Ronicky Doone.

"Well," she said, as she settled in the chair. "Well?"

A world of meaning in those two small words--a world of dread controlled. He merely stared at her thoughtfully.

"I hit the wrong trail, lady," he said quietly. "I was looking for somebody else."

She started. "You were after--" She stopped.

"That's right, I guess," he admitted.

"How many of you are there?" she asked curiously, so curiously that she seemed to be forgetting the danger. "Poor Carry Smith with a mob--" She stopped suddenly again. "What did you do to Harry Morgan?"

"I left him safe and quiet," said Ronicky Doone.

The girl's face hardened strangely. "What you are, and what your game is I don't know," she said. "But I'll tell you this: I'm letting you play as if you had all the cards in the deck. But you haven't. I've got one ace that'll take all your trumps. Suppose I call once what'll happen to you, pal?"

"You don't dare call," he said.

"Don't dare me," said the girl angrily. "I hate a dare worse than anything in the world, almost." For a moment her green-blue eyes were pools of light flas.h.i.+ng angrily at him.

Into the hand of Ronicky Doone, with that magic speed and grace for which his fame was growing so great in the mountain desert, came the long, glimmering body of the revolver, and, holding it at the hip, he threatened her.

She shrank back at that, gasping. For there was an utter surety about this man's handling of the weapon. The heavy gun balanced and steadied in his slim fingers, as if it were no more than a feather's weight.

"I'm talking straight, lady," said Ronicky Doone. "Sit down--p.r.o.nto!"

In the very act of obedience she straightened again. "It's bluff," she said. "I'm going through that door!" Straight for the door she went, and Ronicky Doone set his teeth.

"Go back!" he commanded. He glided to the door and blocked her way, but the gun hung futile in his hand.

"It's easy to pull a gun, eh?" said the girl, with something of a sneer. "But it takes nerve to use it. Let me through this door!"

"Not in a thousand years," said Ronicky.

She laid her hand on the door and drew it back--it struck his shoulder--and Ronicky gave way with a groan and stood with his head bowed. Inwardly he cursed himself. Doubtless she was used to men who bullied her, as if she were another man of an inferior sort. Doubtless she despised him for his weakness. But, though he gritted his teeth, he could not make himself firm. Those old lessons which sink into a man's soul in the West came back to him and held him. In the helpless rage which possessed him he wanted battle above all things in the world. If half a dozen men had poured through the doorway he would have rejoiced. But this one girl was enough to make him helpless.

He looked up in amazement. She had not gone; in fact, she had closed the door slowly and stood with her back against it, staring at him in a speechless bewilderment.

"What sort of a man are you?" asked the girl at last.

"A fool," said Ronicky slowly. "Go out and round up your friends; I can't stop you."

"No," said the girl thoughtfully, "but that was a poor bluff at stopping me."

He nodded. And she hesitated still, watching his face closely.

"Listen to me," she said suddenly. "I have two minutes to talk to you, and I'll give you those two minutes. You can use them in getting out of the house--I'll show you a way--or you can use them to tell me just why you've come."

In spite of himself Ronicky smiled. "Lady," he said, "if a rat was in a trap d'you think he'd stop very long between a chance of getting clear and a chance to tell how he come to get into the place?"

"I have a perfectly good reason for asking," she answered. "Even if you now get out of the house safely you'll try to come back later on."

"Lady," said Ronicky, "do I look as plumb foolish as that?"

"You're from the West," she said in answer to his slang.

"Yes."

She considered the straight-looking honesty of his eyes. "Out West,"

she said, "I know you men are different. Not one of the men I know here would take another chance as risky as this, once they were out of it. But out there in the mountains you follow long trails, trails that haven't anything but a hope to lead you along them? Isn't that so?"

"Maybe," admitted Ronicky. "It's the fever out of the gold days, lady.

You start out chipping rocks to find the right color; maybe you never find the right color; maybe you never find a streak of pay stuff, but you keep on trying. You're always just sort of around the corner from making a big strike."

She nodded, smiling again, and the smiles changed her pleasantly, it seemed to Ronicky Doone. At first she had impressed him almost as a man, with her cold, steady eyes, but now she was all woman, indeed.

"That's why I say that you'll come back. You won't give up with one failure. Am I right?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I dunno. If the trail fever hits me again--maybe I would come back."

"You started to tell me. It's because of Caroline Smith?"

"Yes."

"You don't have to talk to me," said the girl. "As a matter of fact I shouldn't be here listening to you. But, I don't know why, I want to help you. You--you are in love with Caroline?"

"No," said Ronicky.

Her expression grew grave and cold again. "Then why are you here hunting for her? What do you want with her?"

"Lady," said Ronicky, "I'm going to show you the whole layout of the cards. Maybe you'll take what I say right to headquarters--the man that smiles--and block my game."

"You know him?" she asked sharply.

Apparently that phrase, "the man who smiles," was enough to identify him.

"I've seen him. I dunno what he is, I dunno what you are, lady, but I figure that you and Caroline Smith and everybody else in this house is under the thumb of the gent that smiles."

Her eyes darkened with a shadow of alarm. "Go on," she said curtly.