The Sheriff's Son Part 12

"No. The trees are like a wall. There is not an open foot by which one could enter."

"Isn't there?" She laughed. "There's a way in just the same. You see that big rock over to the left. A trail drops down into the aspens back of it. A man lives in the gulch, an ex-convict. His name is Dan Meldrum."

"I expect he isn't troubled much with visitors."'

"No. He lives alone. I don't like him. I wish he would move away.

He doesn't do the park any good."

A man was sitting on the porch of the Tighe place as they drove up.

Beside him lay a pair of crutches.

"That is Jess," the girl told Beaudry. "Don't mind if he is gruff or bad-tempered. He is soured."

But evidently this was not the morning for Tighe to be gruff. He came to meet them on his crutches, a smile on his yellow, sapless face.

That smile seemed to Roy more deadly than anger. It did not warm the cold, malignant eyes nor light the mordant face with pleasure. Only the lips and mouth responded mechanically to it.

"Glad to see you, Miss Beulah. Come in."

He opened the gate and they entered. Presently Beaudry, his blood beating fast, found himself shaking hands with Tighe. The man had an odd trick of looking at one always from partly hooded eyes and at an angle.

"Mr. Street is selling windmills," explained Miss Rutherford. "Brad Charlton said you were talking of buying one, so here is your chance."

"Yes, I been thinking of it." Tighe's voice was suave. "What is your proposition, Mr. Street?"

Roy talked the Dynamo Aermotor for fifteen minutes. There was something about the still look of this man that put him into a cold sweat.

It was all he could do to concentrate his attention on the patter of a salesman, but he would not let his mind wander from the single track upon which he was projecting it. He knew he was being watched closely.

To make a mistake might be fatal.

"Sounds good. I'll look your literature over, Mr. Street. I suppose you'll be in the park a few days?"

"Yes."

"Then you can come and see me again. I can't come to you so easy, Mr.--er--"

"Street," suggested Beulah.

"That's right--Street. Well, you see I'm kinder tied down." He indicated his crutches with a little lift of one hand. "Maybe Miss Beulah will bring you again."

"Suits me fine if she will," Beaudry agreed promptly.

The half-hooded eyes of the cripple slid to the girl and back again to Roy. He had a way of dry-was.h.i.+ng the backs of his hands like Uriah Heep.

"Fine. You'll stay to dinner, now, of course. That's good. That's good. Young folks don't know how it pleasures an old man to meet up with them sometimes." His low voice was as smooth as oil.

Beaudry conceived a horror of the man. The veiled sneer behind the smile on the sapless face, the hooded hawk eyes, the almost servile deference, held a sinister threat that chilled the spine of his guest.

The young man thought of him as of a repulsive spider spinning a web of trouble that radiated from this porch all over the Big Creek country.

"Been taking pictures of each other, I reckon. Fine. Fine. Now, I wonder, Miss Beulah, if you'd do an old man a favor. This porch is my home, as you might say, seeing as how I'm sorter held down here. I'd kinder like a picture of it to hang up, providing it ain't asking too much of you."

"Of course not. I'll take it now," answered the girl.

"That's right good of you. I'll jest sit here and be talking to Mr.

Street, as you might say. Wouldn't that make a good picture--kinder liven up the porch if we're on it?"

Roy felt a sudden impulse to protest, but he dared not yield to it.

What was it this man wanted of the picture? Why had he baited a trap to get a picture of him without Beulah Rutherford knowing that he particularly wanted it? While the girl took the photograph, his mind was racing for Tighe's reason.

"I'll send you a copy as soon as I print it, Mr. Tighe," promised Beulah.

"I'll sure set a heap of store by it, Miss Beulah. . . . If you don't mind helping me set the table, we'll leave Mr. Street this old newspaper for a few minutes whilst we fix up a snack. You'll excuse us, Mr. Street? That's good."

Beulah went into the house the same gay and light-hearted comrade of Beaudry that she had been all morning. When he was called in to dinner, he saw at once that Tighe had laid his spell upon her. She was again the sullen, resentful girl of yesterday. Suspicion filmed her eyes. The eager light of faith in him that had quickened them while she listened for his answers to her nave questions about the great world was blotted out completely.

She sat through dinner in cold silence. Tighe kept the ball of conversation rolling and Beaudry tried to play up to him. They talked of stock, crops, and politics. Occasionally the host diverted the talk to outside topics. He asked the young man politely how he liked the park, whether he intended to stay long, how long he had lived in New Mexico, and other casual questions.

Roy was glad when dinner was over. He drew a long breath of relief when they had turned their backs upon the ranch. But his spirits did not register normal even in the spring suns.h.i.+ne of the hills. For the dark eyes that met his were clouded with doubt and resentment.

Chapter VIII

Beulah Asks Questions

A slim, wiry youth in high-heeled boots came out of the house with Brad Charlton just as the buggy stopped at the porch of the horse ranch. He nodded to Beulah.

"'Lo, sis."

"My brother Ned--Mr. Street." The girl introduced them a little sulkily.

Ned Rutherford offered Roy a coffee-brown hand and looked at him with frank curiosity. He had just been hearing a lot about this good-looking stranger who had dropped into the park.

"See Jess Tighe? What did he say about the windmill?" asked Charlton.

"Wanted to think it over," answered Beaudry.

Beulah had drawn her brother to one side, but as Roy talked with Charlton he heard what the other two said, though each spoke in a low voice.

"Where you going, Ned?" the sister asked.

"Oh, huntin' strays."

"Home to-night?"

"Reckon not."

"What deviltry are you and Brad up to now? This will be the third night you've been away--and before that it was Jeff."