But the eye of Andy, then and thereafter, whenever
he was near the five, kept steadily upon the scar-faced
man. Henry had tilted his chair back against
the wall. The night had come on chill, with a
rising wind that hummed through the cracks of the
ill-built wall and tossed the flame in the throat
of the chimney; Henry draped a coat like a cloak around
his shoulders and buried his chin in his hands, separated
from the others by a vast gulf. Presently Scottie
was sitting at the table. The others were gathered
around him in expectant attitudes.
“What’s new?” they exclaimed in
one voice.
“Oh, about a million things. Let me get
some of this ham into my face, and then I’ll
talk. I’ve got a batch of newspapers yonder.
There’s a gold rush on up to Tolliver’s
Creek.”
Andy blinked, for that news was at least four weeks
old. But now came a tide of other news, and almost
all of it was stale stuff to him. But the men
drank it in—all except Henry, silent in
his corner. He was relaxed, as if he slept.
“But the most news is about the killing of Bill
Dozier.”
“Ol’ Bill!” grunted red-headed Jeff.
“Well, I’ll be hung! There’s
one good deed done. He was overdue, anyways.”
Andy, waiting breathlessly, watched lest the eye of
the narrator should swing toward him for the least
part of a second. But Scottie seemed utterly
oblivious of the fact that he sat in the same room
with the murderer. “Well, he got it,”
said Scottie. “And he didn’t get it
from behind. Seems there was a young gent in
Martindale—all you boys know old Jasper
Lanning?” There was an answering chorus.
“Well, he’s got a nephew, Andrew Lanning.
This kid was sort of a bashful kind, they say.
But yesterday he up and bashed a fellow in the jaw,
and the man went down. Whacked his head on a
rock, and young Lanning thought his man was dead.
So he holds off the crowd with a gun, hops a horse,
and beats it.”
“Pretty, pretty!” murmured Larry.
“But what’s that got to do with that hyena,
Bill Dozier?”
“I don’t get it all hitched up straight.
Most of the news come from Martindale to town by telephone.
Seems this young Lanning was follered by Bill Dozier.
He was always a hound for a job like that, eh?”
There was a growl of assent.
“He hand-picked five rough ones and went after
Lanning. Chased him all night. Landed at
John Merchant’s place. The kid had dropped
in there to call on a girl. Can you beat that
for cold nerve, him figuring that he’d killed
a man, and Bill Dozier and five more on his trail to
bring him back to wait and see whether the buck he
dropped lived or died—and then to slide
over and call on a lady? No, you can’t raise
that!”
But the tidings were gradually breaking in upon the
mind of Andrew Lanning. Buck Heath had not been
dead; the pursuit was simply to bring him back on
some charge of assault; and now—Bill Dozier—the
head of Andrew swam.
