The Strength of the Pines Part 13

"Come down, Dave," he commanded. "The bear is gone."

Dave crept down the trunk and halted at its base. He studied the cold face before him. "Better not try nothing," he advised hoa.r.s.ely.

"Why not?" Bruce asked. "Do you think I'm afraid of a coward?" The man started at the words; his head bobbed backward as if Bruce had struck him beneath the jaw with his fist.

"People don't call the Turners cowards and walk off with it," the man told him.

"Oh, the lowest coward!" Bruce said between set teeth. "The yellowest, mongrel coward! Your own confederate--and you had to drop your gun and run up a tree. You might have stopped the bear's charge."

Dave's face twisted in a scowl. "You're brave enough now. Wait to see what happens later. Give me my gun. I'm going to go."

"You can go, but you don't get your gun. I'll fill you full of lead if you try to touch it."

Dave looked up with some care. He wanted to know for certain if this tenderfoot meant what he said. The man was blind in some things, his vision was twisted and dark, but he made no mistake about the look on the cold, set face before him. Bruce's finger was curled about the trigger, and it looked to Dave as if it itched to exert further pressure.

"I don't see why I spare you, anyway," Bruce went on. His tone was self-reproachful. "G.o.d knows I hadn't ought to--remembering who and what you are. If you'd only give me one little bit of provocation--"

Dave saw lurid lights growing in the man's eyes; and all at once a conclusion came to him. He decided he'd make no further effort to regain the gun. His life was rather precious to him, strangely, and it was wholly plain that a dread and terrible pa.s.sion was slowly creeping over his enemy. He could see it in the darkening face, the tight grip of the hands on the rifle stock. His own sharp features grew more cunning. "You ought to be glad I didn't stop the bear with my rifle," he said hurriedly. "I had Hudson bribed--you wouldn't have found out something that you did find out if he hadn't lain here dying. You wouldn't have learned--"

But the sentence died in the middle. Bruce made answer to it. For once in his life Dave's cunning had not availed him; he had said the last thing in the world that he should have said, the one thing that was needed to cause an explosion. He hadn't known that some men have standards other than self gain. And some small measure of realization came to him when he felt the dust his full length under him.

Bruce's answer had been a straight-out blow with his fist, with all his strength behind it, in the very center of his enemy's face.

XVIII

In his years of residence at Trail's End, Dave Turner had acquired a thorough knowledge of all its paths. That knowledge stood him in good stead now. He wished to cross the ridges to Simon's house at least an hour before Bruce could return to Linda.

He traveled hard and late, and he reached Simon's door just before sundown of the second day. Bruce was still a full two hours distant. But Dave did not stay to knock. It was ch.o.r.e-time, and he thought he would find Simon in his barn, supervising the feeding and care of the livestock. He had guessed right, and the two men had a moment's talk in the dusky pa.s.sage behind the stalls.

"I've brought news," Dave said.

Simon made no answer at first. The saddle pony in the stall immediately in front of them, frightened at Dave's unfamiliar figure, had crowded, trembling, against his manger. Simon's red eyes watched him; then he uttered a short oath. He took two strides into the stall and seized the halter rope in his huge, muscular hand. Three times he jerked it with a peculiar, quartering pull, a curbing that might have been ineffective by a man of ordinary strength, but with the incomprehensible might of the great forearm behind it was really terrible punishment. Dave thought for a moment his brother would break the animal's neck; the whites began to show about the soft, dark pupils of its eyes. The strap over the head broke with the fourth pull; then the horse recoiled, plunging and terrified, into the opposite corner of the stall.

Simon leaped with shattering power at the creature's shoulders, his huge arms encircled its neck, his shoulders heaved, and he half-threw it to the floor. Then, as it staggered to rise, his heavy fist flailed against its neck. Again and again he struck, and in the half-darkness of the stable it was a dreadful thing to behold. The man's fury, always quickly aroused, was upon him; his brawny form moved with the agility of a panther. Even Dave, whose shallow eyes were usually wont to feast on cruelty, viewed the scene with some alarm. It wasn't that he was moved by the agony of the horse. But he did remember that horses cost money, and Simon seemed determined to kill the animal before his pa.s.sion was spent.

The horse cowered, and in a moment more it was hard to remember he was a member of a n.o.ble, high-spirited breed,--a swift runner, brainy as a dog, a servant faithful and worthy. It was no longer easy to think of him as a creature of beauty,--and there is no other word than beauty for these long-maned, long-tailed, trim-lined animals. He stood quiet at last, his head hanging low, knees bent, eyes curiously sorrowful and dark. Simon fastened the broken strap about his neck, gave it one more jerk that almost knocked the animal off his feet, then turned back to Dave. Except for a higher color in his cheeks, darker lights in his eyes, and an almost imperceptible quickening of his breathing, it did not seem as if he had moved.

"You're always bringing news," he said.

Dave opened his eyes. He had forgotten his own words in the tumult of the fight he had just watched, but plainly Simon hadn't forgotten. He opened his mouth to speak.

"Well, what is it? Out with it," his brother urged. "If it's as important as some of the other news you've brought don't take my time."

"All right," the other replied sullenly. "You don't have to hear it. But I'm telling you it's of real importance this time--and sometime you'll find out." He scowled into the dark face. "But suit yourself."

He turned as if to go. He rather thought that Simon would call him back.

It would be, in a measure, a victory. But Simon went back to his inspection of the stalls.

Dave walked clear to the door, then turned. "Don't be a fool, Simon," he urged. "Listen to what I have to tell you. Bruce Folger knows where that secret agreement is."

For once in his life Dave got a response of sufficient emphasis to satisfy him. His brother whirled, his whole expression undergoing an immediate and startling change. If there was one emotion that Dave had never seen on Simon's face it was fear,--and he didn't know for certain that he saw it now. But there was alarm--unmistakable--and surprise too.

"What do you mean?" he demanded.

Dave exulted inwardly. His brother's response had almost made up for the evil news that he brought. For Dave's fortunes, as well as Simon's, depended on the vast fertile tract being kept in the clan's possession.

His eyes narrowed ever so slightly. For the first time in his life, as far as Dave could remember, Simon had encountered a situation that he had not immediately mastered. Perhaps it was the beginning of Simon's downfall, which meant--by no great stretch of the imagination--the advancement of Dave. But in another second of clear thinking Dave knew that in his brother's strength lay his own; if this mighty force at the head of the clan was weakening, no hope remained for any of them. His own face grew anxious.

"Out with it," Simon stormed. His tone was really urgent now, not insolent as usual. "Good Lord, man, don't you know that if Bruce gets that down to the settlements before the thirtieth of next month we're lost--and nothing in this world can save us? We can't drive _him_ off, like we drove the Rosses. There's too much law down in the valleys. If he's got that paper, there's only one thing to do. Help me saddle a horse."

"Wait a minute. I didn't say he had it. I only said he knew where it was. He's still an hour or two walk from here, toward Little River, and if we have to wait for him on the trail, we've got plenty of time. And of course I ain't quite sure he _does_ know where it is."

Simon smiled mirthlessly. "The news is beginning to sound like the rest of yours."

"Old Hudson is dead," Dave went on. "And don't look at me--I didn't do it. I wish I had, though, first off. For once my judgment was better than yours. The Killer got him."

"Yes. Go on."

"I was with him when it happened. My gun got jammed so I couldn't shoot."

"Where is it now?"

Dave scrambled in vain for a story to explain the loss of his weapon to Bruce, and the one that came out at last didn't do him particular credit. "I--I threw the d.a.m.n thing away. Wish I hadn't now, but it made me so mad by jamming--it was a fool trick. Maybe I can go back after it and find it."

Simon smiled again. "Very good so far," he commented.

Dave flushed. "Bruce was there too--fact is, creased the bear--and the last minute before he died Hudson told him where the agreement was hidden. I couldn't hear all he said--I was too far away--but I heard enough to think that he told Bruce the hiding, place. It was natural Hudson would know it, and we were fools for not asking him about it long ago."

"And why didn't you get that information away from Bruce with your gun?"

"Didn't I tell you the thing was jammed? If it hadn't of been for that, I'd done something more than find out where it is. I'd stopped this nonsense once and for all, and let a hole through that tenderfoot big enough to see through. _Then_ there'd never be any more trouble. It's the thing to do now."

Simon looked at his brother's face with some wonder. More crafty and cunning, Dave was like the coyote in that he didn't yield so quickly to fury as that gray wolf, his brother. But when it did come, it seared him. It had come now. Simon couldn't mistake the fact; he saw it plain in the glowing eyes, the clenched hands, the drawn lips. Dave was remembering the pain of the blow Bruce had given him, and the smart of the words that had preceded it.

"You and he must have had a little session down there by the creek,"

Simon suggested slowly, "when your gun was jammed. Of course, he took the gun. What's the use of trying to lie to me?"

"He did. What could I do?"

"And now you want him potted--from ambush."

"What's the use of waiting? Who'd know?" The two men stood face to face in the quiet and deepening dusk of the barn; and there was growing determination on each face. "Every day our chance is less and less,"

Dave went on. "We've been thinking we're safe, but if he knows where that agreement is, we're not safe at all. How would you like to get booted off these three thousand acres now, just after we've all got attached to them? To start making our living as day laborers--and maybe face a hangin' for some things of long ago? With this land behind him, he'd be in a position to pay old debts, I'm telling you. We're not secure, and you know it. The law doesn't forget, and it doesn't forgive.

We've been fooling away our time ever since we knew he was coming. We should have met him on the trail and let the buzzards talk to him."