“Oh, Jim Perris,” cried the girl. “Why
have you let this happen!”
“I’m sure sorry,” said Perris.
He disdained further explanation.
“But,” said Marianne, “I’ve
got to have that terrible stallion killed. And
who can do it but Jim Perris, Mr. Hervey?”
“Gimme time,” said Lew, “and I’ll
do it.”
She stamped her foot in anger.
“How you wheedled the authority out of my father,
I don’t know,” she said. “But
you have it and you can discharge him if you want.
But he’ll hear another side to this when he
returns, Mr. Hervey, I promise you that!” She
whirled on Red Jim. “Mr. Perris, if Mr.
Hervey allows you to stay, will you remain for—a
week, say, and try to get rid of Alcatraz for me?
Mr. Hervey, will you let me have Mr. Perris for one
week?”
There was more angry demand than appeal in her voice,
but Hervey knew he must give way. After all,
the way to carry this thing through was to use the
high hand as little as possible. Oliver Jordan
would certainly wait a week before he returned.
“I sure want to be reasonable, Miss Jordan,”
he said. “I’m only acting in your
father’s interests. Of course he can stay
for a week.”
She whirled away from him with a glance of angry suspicion
which softened instantly as she faced Red Jim.
“You will stay?” she pleaded.
Sullen pride drew Jim one way; the bright, eager eyes
drew him another.
“As long as you want,” he said gravely.
THE KING
If men may to some degree be classed in categories
of bird and beast, one like the eagle, another like
the bear, some swinish, some elephantine, some boldly
leonine, unquestionably Red Perris must be likened
to the cat tribe. To some the comparison would
have seemed most opportune, having seen him in restless
action; but the same idea might have come to one who
saw him lying prone on a certain hilltop in the western
foothills of the Eagle mountains, unmoving hour by
hour, his rifle shoved out before him among the dead
grasses, his chin resting on the back of his folded
hands, and always his attentive eyes roved from point
to point over the landscape below him. A cat lies
passive in this manner half a day, watching the gopher
hole.
It was not the first or the second time he had spent
the afternoon in this place. For nearly a week
he had given the better part of every day to the vigil
on this hilltop. All this for very good reasons.
During ten days after his first coming to the ranch
he tried the ordinary methods of hunting down wild
horses, and with a carefully posted string of half
a dozen horses, he twice attempted to run down the
outlaw, but he had never come within more than the
most distant and hazardous rifle range. To be
sure he had fired some dozen shots during the pursuits
but they had been random efforts at times when the
red chestnut was flashing off in the distance, fairly
walking away from the best mounts the hunter could
procure. Having logically determined that it
was not in the power of horse flesh burdened with
the weight of a rider to come within striking distance
of the stallion, Red Jim Perris passed from action
to quiescence. If he could not outrun Alcatraz
he would outwait him.
