The Heart of Thunder Mountain

“You mean to say–” queried Larkin pointedly, leaning across the neck of his pony, and looking keenly into Huntington’s eyes.

“Nothing,” answered Huntington, lifting his huge shoulders.

“That’s sayin’ a lot an’ sayin’ nothing,” retorted Larkin.

“You’ll know more when you try to collect that thousand.”

“All right,” responded Larkin, gathering up the reins as if to terminate the interview. “Where’s his place–if it ain’t a secret?”

“It’s over beyond that ridge,” said Huntington, pointing toward the west. “You go back about three miles the way you came, an’ there’s a branch road–”

“Hell!” snorted the cowboy whose arm hung limp at his side.

The three men exchanged glances. They were very weary; they had used almost the last of their powers to bring the outlaw this far; and they were plainly reluctant to undertake another tussle with the tireless animal, now ready, without doubt, to renew his struggle for liberty.

Huntington watched them narrowly.

“I’m all in!” grumbled Raley.

“You look it,” said Huntington. Then he added lightly: “Still, you ought to fetch up at Haig’s place before morning.”

Marion felt disgust and resentment rising in her at this misrepresentation of the distance to Haig’s ranch. Whatever Haig had done, this was cowardly and unfair. She looked eagerly at the other men, expecting to hear some one correct the gross exaggeration. But the faces were all blank, and no one spoke.

Something like a groan escaped from the lips of the injured cowboy. He looked as if he might tumble from the saddle at any instant.

“Sure we can!” said Larkin doggedly. “Come, men! Let’s move on.”

“Well, good luck!” said Huntington carelessly. And then, as if on second thought: “But see here! You fellows look all right to me, and if Haig’s changed his mind, or hasn’t got the cash handy, bring the horse back here, and I’ll talk business with you.”

“Talk business now!” Smith blurted out, averting his eyes from Larkin.

“Very well. I’ll give you five hundred for him–if you don’t want to go any farther. He ain’t worth it, but he’s a kind of a curiosity, and–”

“That ain’t talkin’ business worth a dam’!” cried Larkin. “Come along, men!”

He turned his pony’s head, and took a fresh grip on the halter that held the prisoner. Smith moved also, though slowly, but Raley did not budge.

“I’m damned if I go any further!” he growled.

Smith stopped, and looked uncertainly from Raley to Larkin, from Larkin to Huntington, who was studying him craftily.

“The five hundred isn’t wind,” said Huntington sneeringly. “It’s over there in Thompson’s safe, if you want it.”

“We’ll see Haig first,” said Larkin, compressing his lips, and speaking more to his companions than to Huntington.

Smith shifted uneasily in his saddle, while Raley avoided Larkin’s eyes, and looked appealingly at Huntington. The ranchman, in his turn, took a sidelong glance, furtive and questioning, at the faces of his neighbors. The moment was critical, and much more was involved in the crisis than the possession of the golden outlaw. For a long time Huntington had assumed a certain leadership in the Park, but it had not always been unquestioned. His qualifications for leadership were not as apparent to all his neighbors as they were to himself, and there were some who even resented his pretensions. Nevertheless he had, in a way, succeeded; and he had been permitted to represent the entire valley as far as he liked in the war with Philip Haig. One and all, indeed, regarded Haig as an intruder; many of them had more than once threatened violence against him; and there was not among them one whom Haig, if he had wanted a defender, could have counted on. Yet, for all that, Huntington was practically alone in the depth of his hatred and the violence of his methods. If Haig had no friends in the Park, he had only a few, perhaps no more than two or three, inveterate enemies, of whom Huntington was the active representative.

Huntington now saw in the faces of the men around him that they were doubtful of him, and that the time was opportune to turn their passivity into energetic support of his plans. Moreover, he had already “put his foot in it,” had gone too far to withdraw without discredit. Having openly insulted the absent enemy, and having clearly revealed his intention to cheat him of this prize, to weaken now would be to abandon forever all hope of ascendency. For an instant he regretted what he had done, and cursed himself under his breath. Then, taking a new grip on himself, he returned to the attack.

“Seven hundred and fifty, then!” he said with a swagger. “And it’s cash, not words.”

There was a moment of suspense. The three men, who were moving slowly away, turned in their saddles. Not a muscle quivered, not a foot stirred in the expectant crowd. Marion felt that in another minute she would cry out, shrieking at Seth, shrieking the warning Haig had sent by her.

“That’s good enough, for me!” declared Raley, throwing the reins over his pony’s head, and preparing painfully to dismount.

“No, Jim!” cried Smith. “Let him say a thousand, an’ I’m with you. ’Tain’t exactly on the square, but the’s no use killin’ ourselves for–”

His speech was cut short by a shrill cry from a woman who stood on a horse block at the outer edge of the crowd.

“Look! Look!” she called, pointing a finger toward the long white road.

CHAPTER IV

THE HIGHEST BIDDER

Far up the road appeared a little cloud of dust with a black speck in its center.

A murmur ran through the crowd; a name was passed from mouth to mouth; and the men nearest Huntington began to edge away instinctively, leaving a larger and larger space clear around him and the three cow-punchers.

Marion too looked, and understood. She had not dismounted, but still sat her pony within ten feet of the outlaw, at the side of the roadway, in about the middle of which stood Huntington. With an effort she drew her eyes away from that ominous black spot in the distance, and turned toward Seth. A shiver ran through her body, but her cheeks burned, and there was a voice in her ears that shouted, “Tell him he’s a fool to anger me!” For a moment she was on the point of rushing upon Seth, and shrieking that warning into his face. But now it was too late.

Like all the others Huntington stood for a few seconds fascinated by that figure in the puff of dust. And for just those few seconds there was a certain unsteadiness in his attitude, irresolution in the black eyes beneath their bushy brows. But the blue-whiteness under the dark beard was not the pallor of fear, so called. Seth Huntington was as incapable of physical cowardice as he was of moral courage. He was not afraid of Philip Haig, but he was dreadfully afraid of being thought afraid of him. There was yet time to avoid a clash with Haig, to withdraw from an undertaking in which he knew he was wholly in the wrong. But he was not equal to that test of character. He would sooner tackle all the Haigs in Christendom than face the derision of his neighbors, whom he had assiduously taught to expect great things of him on the first occasion. Here was the occasion; he had seized it, blinded by passion; and there was no way for him now but to see it through. He straightened up, and faced the three cow-punchers.

“All right!” he cried defiantly. “It’s a thousand.”

But the three had heard the name murmured by the crowd, had seen the distant horseman. Larkin was plainly elated. Raley and Smith, as plainly abashed, looked this way and that, avoiding the eyes of their leader, and every other eye as well. Huntington, seeing the game about to slip from his hands, whirled on his heel and looked swiftly toward the store.

“Thompson!” he yelled.

“Here!” was the answer, as a small, gray-bearded man in shirt sleeves advanced a step or two from the door.

“Fetch me that roll from your safe, will you?”

“Right!”

As Thompson disappeared within the store, Huntington turned again toward the cowboys.

“A thousand dollars–cash!” he repeated.

Larkin leaned forward on his horse, and looked at him shrewdly.

“Seems to me it’s not the horse you’re after so much as him,” he said, with a grin and a nod toward the road.

“That’s as may be,” retorted Huntington. “Money talks.”

“An’ it says mighty funny things sometimes,” replied Larkin, who now made no concealment of his dislike of Huntington and his “game.”

“We’ll see!” cried Huntington angrily. “How does twelve hundred sound to you two?”