'Drag' Harlan Part 8

She did not know how long she had been unconscious. She saw that Rogers and Lawson were still below, and still talking. So keen was her sense of hearing--every nerve straining in the effort to learn more--that the voices of the men came in through the window with a resonance that, she felt, must be audible to every person in Lamo.

"It ain't my style, that's all. I'd meet Harlan on the level, man to man, if he was lookin' for me. It's likely he ain't at that. I've heard, bad as he is, that he plays square. An' if I was runnin' things I'd take a look at him before chargin' him with killin' Lane Morgan, when the killin' had been done by the Chief, an' Dolver, an' Laskar."

It was Strom Rogers' voice. It bore conviction with it, even though there was pa.s.sionate feeling behind it, mingled strangely with personal hatred and jealousy.

Dumbly, Barbara clutched the window-sill. One dry, agonized sob racked her; and then she sat on the floor, to stare vacantly at the dingy walls of the room.

Once more she heard Rogers' voice; this time there was a note of savage glee in it:

"There's Harlan now, just slippin' off his cayuse in front of Gage's place. 'Drag,' eh? Well, there don't seem to be nothin' impedin' his actions anywhere."

Prompted by the urge of a curiosity that she could not resist, Barbara reeled to her feet, and with her hands resting on the window-sill leaned out and looked up the street.

In front of the sheriff's office, not more than thirty or forty feet distant, she saw a tall, well-built man standing beside the hitching rail that fringed the board sidewalk. He had evidently just dismounted, and he was standing at the head of a big, coal-black horse. He was in the act of hitching the animal, and his back was toward her.

She watched breathlessly until he turned. And then she stared hard at him, noting the steady, cold, alert eyes; the firm lips; the bigness of him, the atmosphere of capableness that seemed to surround him; the low-swung guns at his hips, with no flaps on the holster-tops, and the bottoms of the holsters tied to his leather chaps with rawhide thongs.

Never had she seen a man like him. For some reason, as yet inexplicable to her, he brought into her troubled consciousness a feeling of cold calm, a refres.h.i.+ng influence that might be compared to the sweep of a cool and unexpected breeze in the middle of a hot day.

He dominated the group of men that instantly surrounded him; and the dominance was not of attire, for he was arrayed like the others. She saw Deveny standing near him, and the man Laskar behind Deveny and Sheriff Gage and several other men. And she saw Rogers and Lawson as they walked slowly toward him.

And then a realization of her loss, of the tragedy that had descended upon her, again a.s.sailed her; and a fury of intolerance against inaction seized her. She could not stay in this room and suffer the hideous uncertainty; she could not take Rogers' word that her father had been killed. There must be some mistake. Perhaps Rogers knew she was at the window, listening, and he had said that just to spite her. For she had discouraged Rogers' advances as she had discouraged Deveny's.

Breathing fast, she unlocked the door and went out into the hall.

The man whom Deveny had placed to guard her was still lounging on the stair platform, and he grinned when he saw her.

"Comin' to try ag'in?" he grinned.

She smiled--a disarming smile that brought a fatuous gleam into the man's eyes, so that he permitted her to come close to him.

"Deveny's got d.a.m.n' good judgment," he said as she halted near him. "He knows a thoroughbred when he sees--h.e.l.l!"

The e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n came from his lips as Barbara leaped swiftly past him. He threw out a futile arm, and stood for an instant, shocked into inaction as Barbara ran down the stairs toward the street. Then the man leaped after her, cursing. She could hear him saying: "d.a.m.n your hide! d.a.m.n your hide!" as he came after her, his spurs jangling on the steps.

CHAPTER VI

CHAIN-LIGHTNING

Turning from Purgatory, after he had dismounted in front of the sheriff's office, Harlan faced three men who stood just outside of the building, watching him.

The slightly humorous smile that curved Harlan's lips might have betrayed his reason for dismounting in front of the sheriff's office, for he had seen Laskar standing with the two other men. But no man could have told that he looked at Laskar directly, except Laskar himself, who would have sworn that Harlan did not remove his gaze from him, once he had slipped from Purgatory's back.

For Harlan's eyes told nothing. They seemed to be gazing at nothing, and at everything. For Gage, watching the man, was certain Harlan was looking directly at him as he grinned, and Deveny, like Laskar, was sure Harlan's gaze was upon him. And all of them, noting one another's embarra.s.sment, stood silent, marveling.

And now Deveny discovered that Harlan was watching the three of them together--a trick which is accomplished by fixing the gaze upon some object straight in front of one; in this case it was Deveny's collar--and then including other objects on each side of the center object.

Steady nerves and an inflexible will are required to keep the gaze unwavering, and a complete absence of self-consciousness. Thus Deveny knew he was standing in the presence of a man whose poise and self-control were marvelous; and he knew, too, that Harlan would be aware of the slightest move made by either of the three; more, he could detect any sign of concerted action.

And concerted action was what Deveny and Laskar and the sheriff had planned. And they had purposely dragged Laskar outside, expecting Harlan would do just as he had done, and as his eyes warned he intended to do.

"I'm after you, Laskar," he said softly.

Laskar stiffened. He made no move, keeping his hands at his sides, where they had been all the time that had elapsed since Harlan had dismounted.

Laskar's eyes moved quickly, with an inquiring flash in them, toward Deveny and the sheriff. It was time for Deveny and the sheriff to precipitate the action they had agreed upon.

But the sheriff did not move. Nor did Deveny change his position. A queer, cold chill had come over Deveny--a vague dread, a dragging reluctance--an indecision that startled him and made of his thoughts an odd jumble of half-formed impulses that seemed to die before they could become definite.

He had faced gun-fighters before, and had felt no fear of them. But something kept drumming into his ears at this instant with irritating insistence that this was not an ordinary man; that standing before him, within three paces, his eyes swimming in an unfixed vacuity which indicated preparation for violent action, was Harlan--"Drag" Harlan, the Pardo two-gun man; Harlan, who had never been beaten in a gunfight.

Could he--Deveny--beat him? Could he, now, with "Drag" Harlan watching the three of them, could he draw with any hope of success, with the hope of beating the other's lightning hand on the downward flash to life or death?

Deveny paled; he was afraid to take the chance. His eyes wavered from Harlan's; he cast a furtive glance at the sheriff.

Harlan caught the glance, smiled mirthlessly and spoke shortly to Laskar:

"I told you to keep hittin' the breeze till there wasn't any more breeze," he said. "I ought to have bored you out there by the red rock. I gave you your chance. Flash your gun!"

"Harlan!"

This was Gage. His voice sounded as though it had been forced out: it was hoa.r.s.e and hollow.

Harlan did not move, nor did his eyes waver. There was feeling in them now: intense, savage, cold. And his voice snapped.

"You're the sheriff, eh? You want to gas, I reckon. Do it quick before this coyote goes for his gun."

The sheriff cleared his throat. "You're under arrest, Harlan, for killin'

Lane Morgan out there in the desert yesterday."

Harlan's eyes narrowed, his lips wreathed into a feline smile. But he did not change his position.

"Who's the witness against me?"

"Laskar."

"Has he testified?"

"He's goin' to."

Harlan backed away a little. His grin was tiger-like, a yellow flame seemed to leap in his eyes. Laskar, realizing at last that he could hope for no a.s.sistance from Gage or Deveny, grew rigid with desperation.

Death was in front of him; he knew it. Death or a deathless fame. The fates had willed one or the other, and he chose to take the gambler's chance, the chance he and Dolver and the Chief had refused Lane Morgan.