Brand Blotters Part 29

"I met him when he first came here. He was lost on the desert and I found him. After that we became very unfriendly. He jumped a mining claim belonging to my father. But we've made it up and agreed to be friends."

"He wrote about the young lady who saved his life."

Melissy smiled. "Did he say that I was a cattle and a stage rustler?"

"He said nothing that was not good."

"I'm much obliged to him," the Western girl answered breezily. "And now do tell me, Miss Yarnell, that you and your people have made up your mind to stay permanently."

"Father is still looking the ground over. He has almost decided to buy a store here. Yet he has been in the town only a day. So you see he must like it."

Outside the open second story window of the hotel Melissy heard a voice that sounded familiar. She moved toward the window alcove, and at the same time a quick step was heard in the hall. Someone opened the door of the parlor and stood on the threshold. It was the man called Boone.

Melissy, from the window, glanced round. Her first impulse was to speak; her second to remain silent. For the Arkansan was not looking at her. His mocking ribald gaze was upon Ferne Yarnell.

That young woman looked up from the letter of introduction she was reading and a startled expression swept into her face.

"Dunc Boone," she cried.

The man doffed his hat with elaborate politeness. "Right glad to meet up with you again, Miss Ferne. You was in short dresses when I saw you last.

My, but you've grown pretty. Was it because you heard I was in Arizona that you came here?"

She rose, rejecting in every line of her erect figure his impudent geniality, his insolent pretense of friendliness.

"My brother is in the hotel. If he learns you are here there will be trouble."

A wicked malice lay in his smiling eyes. "Trouble for him or for me?" he inquired silkily.

His lash flicked her on the raw. Hal Yarnell was a boy of nineteen. This man had a long record as a gunfighter to prove him a desperate man.

Moreover, he knew how hopelessly heart sick she was of the feud that for many years had taken its toll of blood.

"Haven't you done us enough harm, you and yours? Go away. Leave us alone.

That's all I ask of you."

He came in and closed the door. "But you see it ain't all I ask of you, Ferne Yarnell. I always did ask all I could get of a girl as pretty as you."

"Will you leave me, sir?"

"When I'm through."

"Now."

"No, I reckon not," he drawled between half shuttered eyes.

She moved toward the door, but he was there before her. With a turn of his wrist he had locked it.

"This interview quits at my say-so, honey. Think after so many years of absence-makes-the-heart-grow-fonder you're going to trample over me like I was a kid? Guess again."

"Unlock that door," she ordered.

"When I get good and ready. We'll have our talk out first."

Her eyes blazed. She was white as paper though she faced him steadily. But her heart wavered. She dared not call out for fear her brother might hear and come to her a.s.sistance. This she must forestall at all costs.

A heel clicked in the alcove. For the first time Norris, or Boone as the Southern girl had called him, became aware of a third party in the room.

Melissy was leaning out of the window. She called down to a man standing on the street.

"Jack, come up here quick. I want you."

Boone took a step forward. "You here, 'Lissie Lee?"

She laughed scornfully. "Yes, I'm here. An unexpected pleasure, isn't it?"

"Do you know Ferne Yarnell?" he asked, for once taken aback.

"It looks as if I do."

His quick furtive eye fell upon an envelope on the floor. He picked it up.

Upon it was written, "Miss Ferne Yarnell," and in the corner, "Introducing Miss Lee."

A muscle twitched in his face. When he looked up there was an expression of devilish malignity on it.

"Mr. Bellamy's handwriting, looks like." He turned to the Arizona girl.

"Then I didn't put the fellow out of business."

"No, you coward."

The angry color crept to the roots of his hair. "Better luck next time."

The door k.n.o.b rattled. Someone outside was trying to get in. Those inside the room paid no obvious attention to him. The venomous face of the cattle detective held the women fascinated.

"When d.i.c.k Bellamy ambushed Shep he made a h.e.l.l of a bad play of it. My old mammy used to say that the Boones were born wolves. I can see where she was right. The man that killed my brother gets his one of these days and don't you forget it. You just stick around. We're due to shoot this thing out, him and me," the man continued, his deep-socketed eyes burning from the grim handsome face.

"Open the door," ordered a voice from the hall, shaking the k.n.o.b violently.

"You don't know he killed your brother. Someone else may have done it. And it may have been done in self defence," the Arkansas girl said to Boone in a voice so low and reluctant that it appeared the words were wrung from her by torture.

"Think I'm a buzzard head? Why for did he run away? Why did he jump for the sandhills soon as the word came to arrest him?" He snapped together his straight, thin-lipped mouth, much as a trap closes on its prey.

A heavy weight hurtled against the door and shook it to the hinges.

Melissy had been edging to the right. Now with a twist of her lissom body she had slipped past the furious man and turned the key.

Jack Flatray came into the room. His glance swept the young women and fastened on the man. In the crossed eyes of the two was the thrust of rapiers, the grinding of steel on steel, that deadly searching for weakness in the other that duelists employ.

The deputy spoke in a low soft drawl. "Mornin', Boone. Holding an executive session, are you?"

The lids of the detective narrowed to slits. From the first there had been no pretense of friends.h.i.+p between these two. There are men who have only to look once at each other to know they will be foes. It had been that way with them. Causes of antagonism had arisen quickly enough. Both dominant personalities, they had waged silent unspoken warfare for the leaders.h.i.+p of the range. Later over the favor of Melissy Lee this had grown more intense, still without having ever been put into words. Now they were face to face, masks off.

"Why yes, until you b.u.t.ted in, Mr. Sheriff."