“But,” said Charles Merchant, “there’s
one thing I can do. I can set you free to run
down this Lanning.”
“How?”
“You’re needed on your ranch, Hal; but
I want you to let me stand the expenses of this trip.
Take your time, make sure of him, and run him into
the ground.”
“My friend,” said Hal Dozier, “you
turn a pleasure into a real party.”
And Charles Merchant left, knowing that he had signed
the death warrant of young Lanning. In all the
history of the mountain desert there was a tale of
only one man who had escaped, once Hal Dozier took
his trail, and that man had blown out his own brains.
Far away in the western sky Andy Lanning saw a black
dot that moved in wide circles and came up across
the heavens slowly, and he knew it was a buzzard that
scented carrion and was coming up the wind toward that
scent. He had seen them many a time before on
their gruesome trails, and the picture which he carried
was not a pleasant one.
But now the picture that drifted through his mind
was still more horrible. It was a human body
lying face downward in the sand with the wind ruffling
in the hair and the hat rolled a few paces off and
the gun close to the outstretched hand. He knew
from Uncle Jasper that no matter how far the trail
led, or how many years it was ridden, the end of the
outlaw was always the same—death and the
body left to the buzzards. Or else, in some barroom,
a footfall from behind and a bullet through the back.
The flesh of Andy crawled. It was not possible
for him to relax in vigilance for a moment, lest danger
come upon him when he least expected it. Perhaps,
in some open space like this. He went on until
the sun was low in the west and all the sky was rimmed
with color.
Dusk had come over the hills in a rush, when he saw
a house half lost in the shadows. It was a narrow-fronted,
two-storied, unpainted, lonely place, without sign
of a porch. Here, where there was no vestige of
a town near, and where there was no telephone, the
news of the deaths of Bill Dozier and Buck Heath could
not have come. Andy accepted the house as a blessing
and went straight toward it.
But the days of carelessness were over for Andy, and
he would never again approach a house without searching
it like a human face. He studied this shack as
he came closer. If there were people in the building
they did not choose to show a light.
Andy went around to the rear of the house, where there
was a low shed beside the corral, half tumbled down;
but in the corral were five or six fine horses—wild
fellows with bright eyes and the long necks of speed.
Andy looked upon them wistfully. Not one of them
but was worth the price of three of the pinto; but
as for money there was not twenty dollars in the pocket
of Andy.
Stripping the saddle from the pinto, he put it under
the shed and left the mustang to feed and find water
in the small pasture. Then he went with the bridle,
that immemorial sign of one who seeks hospitality in
the West, toward the house. He was met halfway
by a tall, strong man of middle age or more.
There was no hat on his head, which was covered with
a shock of brown hair much younger than the face beneath
it. He beheld Andy without enthusiasm.
