Brand Blotters

  CHAPTER VIII

  THE BOONE-BELLAMY FEUD IS RENEWED

  "Here's six bits on the counter under a seed catalogue. Did you leave ithere, daddy?"

  Champ Lee, seated on the porch just outside the store door, took the pipefrom his mouth and answered:

  "Why no, honey, I don't reckon I did, not to my ricollection."

  "That's queer. I know I didn't----"

  Melissy broke her sentence sharply. There had come into her eyes a sparkof excitement, simultaneous with the brain-flash which told her who hadleft the money. No doubt the quarter and the half dollar had been lyingthere ever since the day last week when Morse had eaten at the Bar DoubleG. She addressed an envelope, dropped the money in, sealed the flap, andput the package beside a letter addressed to T. L. Morse.

  Lee, full of an unhappy restlessness which he could not control, presentlygot up and moved away to the stables. He was blaming himself bitterly forthe events of the past few days.

  It was perhaps half an hour later that Melissy looked up to see thesturdy figure of Morse in the doorway. During the past year he had filledout, grown stronger and more rugged. His deep tan and heavy stridepronounced him an outdoor man no less surely than the corduroy suit andthe high laced miners' boots.

  He came forward to the postoffice window without any sign of recognition.

  "Is Mr. Flatray still here?"

  "No!" Without further explanation Melissy took from the box the twoletters addressed to Morse and handed them to him.

  The girl observed the puzzled look that stole over his face at sight ofthe silver in one envelope. A glance at the business address printed onthe upper left hand corner enlightened him. He laid the money down in thestamp window.

  "This isn't mine."

  "You heard what my father said?"

  "That applies to next time, not to this."

  "I think it does apply to this time."

  "I can't see how you're going to make me take it back. I'm an obstinateman."

  "Just as you like."

  A sudden flush of anger swept her. She caught up the silver and flung itthrough the open window into the dusty road.

  His dark eyes met hers steadily and a dull color burned in his tannedcheeks. Without a word he turned away, and instantly she regretted whatshe had done. She had insulted him deliberately and put herself in thewrong. At bottom she was a tender-hearted child, even though her fatherand his friends had always spoiled her, and she could not but reproachherself for the hurt look she had brought into his strong, sad face. Hewas their enemy, of course, but even enemies have rights.

  Morse walked out of the office looking straight before him, his strongback teeth gripped so that the muscles stood out on his salient jaw.Impulsively the girl ran around the counter after him.

  He looked up from untying his horse to see her straight and supple figurerunning toward him. Her eager face was full of contrition and the color ofpink rose petals came and went in it.

  "I'm sorry, Mr. Morse. I oughtn't to have done that. I hurt yourfeelings," she cried.

  At best he was never a handsome man, but now his deep, dark eyes lit witha glow that surprised her.

  "Thank you. Thank you very much," he said in a low voice.

  "I'm so tempery," she explained in apology, and added: "I suppose a nicegirl wouldn't have done it."

  "A nice girl did do it," was all he could think to say.

  "You needn't take the trouble to say that. I know I've just scrambled upand am not ladylike and proper. Sometimes I don't care. I like to be ableto do things like boys. But I suppose it's dreadful."

  "I don't think it is at all. None of your friends could think so. Not thatI include myself among them," he hastened to disclaim. "I can't be bothyour friend and your enemy, can I?"

  The trace of a sardonic smile was in his eyes. For the moment as shelooked at him she thought he might. But she answered:

  "I don't quite see how."

  "You hate me, I suppose," he blurted out bluntly.

  "I suppose so." And more briskly she added, with dimples playing near thecorners of her mouth: "Of course I do."

  "That's frank. It's worth something to have so decent an enemy. I don'tbelieve you would shoot me in the back."

  "Some of the others would. You should be more careful," she cried beforeshe could stop herself.

  He shrugged. "I take my fighting chance."

  "It isn't much of a one. You'll be shot at from ambush some day."

  "It wouldn't be a new experience. I went through it last week."

  "Where?" she breathed.

  "Down by Willow Wash."

  "Who did it?"

  He laughed, without amusement. "I didn't have my rifle with me, so Ididn't stay to inquire."

  "It must have been some of those wild vaqueros."

  "That was my guess."

  "But you have other enemies, too."

  "Miss Lee," he smiled.

  "I mean others that are dangerous."

  "Your father?" he asked.

  "Father would never do that except in a fair fight. I wasn't thinking ofhim."

  "I don't know whom you mean, but a few extras don't make much differencewhen one is so liberally supplied already," he said cynically.

  "I shouldn't make light of them if I were you," she cautioned.

  "Who do you mean?"

  "I've said all I'm going to, and more than I ought," she told himdecisively. "Except this, that it's your own fault. You shouldn't be sostiff. Why don't you compromise? With the cattlemen, for instance. Theyhave a good deal of right on their side. They _did_ have the rangefirst."

  "You should tell that to your father, too."

  "Dad runs sheep on the range to protect himself. He doesn't drive outother people's cattle and take away their living."

  "Well, I might compromise, but not at the end of a gun."

  "No, of course not. Here comes dad now," she added hurriedly, aware forthe first time that she had been holding an extended conversation with herfather's foe.

  "We started enemies and we quit enemies. Will you shake hands on that,Miss Lee?" he asked.

  She held out her hand, then drew it swiftly back. "No, I can't. I forgot.There's another reason."

  "Another reason! You mean the Arkansas charge against me?" he askedquietly.

  "No. I can't tell you what it is." She felt herself suffused in a crimsonglow. How could she explain that she could not touch hands with himbecause she had robbed him of twenty thousand dollars?

  Lee stopped at the steps, astonished to see his daughter and this man intalk together. Yesterday he would have resented it bitterly, but now thesituation was changed. Something of so much greater magnitude had occurredthat he was too perturbed to cherish his feud for the present. All nighthe had carried with him the dreadful secret he suspected. He could notlook Melissy in the face, nor could he discuss the robbery with anybody.The one fact that overshadowed all others was that his little girl hadgone out and held up a stage, that if she were discovered she would beliable to a term in the penitentiary. Laboriously his slow brain hadworked it all out. A talk with Jim Budd had confirmed his conclusions. Heknew that she had taken this risk in order to save him. He was bowed downwith his unworthiness, with shame that he had dragged her into thishorrible tangle. He was convinced that Jack Flatray would get at thetruth, and already he was resolved to come forward and claim the wholeaffair as his work.

  "I've been apologizing to Mr. Morse for insulting him, dad," the girl saidimmediately.

  Her father passed a bony hand slowly across his unshaven chin. "That'sright, honey. If you done him a meanness, you had ought to say so."

  "She has said so very handsomely, Mr. Lee," spoke up Morse.

  "I've been warning him, dad, that he ought to be more careful how he ridesaround alone, with the cattlemen feeling the way they do."

  "It's a fact they feel right hot under the collar. You're ce'tainly atemptation to them, Mr. Morse," the girl's father agreed.

  The mine ow
ner shifted the subject of conversation. He was not a man ofmany impulses, but he yielded to one now.

  "Can't we straighten out this trouble between us, Mr. Lee? You think I'vedone you an injury. Perhaps I have. If we both mean what's right, we canget together and fix it up in a few minutes."

  The old Southerner stiffened and met him with an eye of jade. "I ain'tasking any favors of you, Mr. Morse. We'll settle this matter some day,and settle it right. But you can't buy me off. I'll not take a bean fromyou."

  The miner's eyes hardened. "I'm not trying to buy you off. I made a fairoffer of peace. Since you have rejected it, there is nothing more to besaid." With that he bowed stiffly and walked away, leading his horse.

  Lee's gaze followed him and slowly the eyes under the beetled browssoftened.

  "Mebbe I done wrong, honey. Mebbe I'd ought to have given in. I'm tooproud to compromise when he's got me beat. That's what's ailin' with me.But I reckon I'd better have knuckled under."

  The girl slipped her arm through his. "Sometimes I'm just like that too,daddy. I've just _got_ to win before I make up. I don't blame you a mite,but, all the same, we should have let him fix it up."

  It was characteristic of them both that neither thought of reversing thedecision he had made. It was done now, and they would abide by theresults. But already both of them half regretted, though for verydifferent reasons. Lee was thinking that for Melissy's sake he should havemade a friend of the man he hated, since it was on the cards that within afew days she might be in his power. The girl's feeling, too, wasunselfish. She could not forget the deep hunger for friendship that hadshone in the man's eyes. He was alone in the world, a strong mansurrounded by enemies who would probably destroy him in the end. There wasstirring in her heart a sweet womanly pity and sympathy for the enemywhose proffer of friendship had been so cavalierly rejected.

  The sight of a horseman riding down the trail from the Flagstaff mineshook Melissy into alertness.

  "Look, dad. It's Mr. Norris," she cried.

  Morse, who had not yet recognized him, swung to the saddle, his heart fullof bitterness. Every man's hand was against his, and every woman's. Whatwas there in his nature that turned people against him so inevitably?There seemed to be some taint in him that corroded all natural humankindness.

  A startled oath brought him from his somber reflections. He looked up, tosee the face of a man with whom in the dead years of the past he had beenin bitter feud.

  Neither of them spoke. Morse looked at him with a face cold as chiselledmarble and as hard. The devil's own passion burned in the storm-tossed oneof the other.

  Norris was the first to break the silence.

  "So it was all a lie about your being killed, Dick Bellamy."

  The mine owner did not speak, but the rigor of his eyes did not relax.

  "Gave it out to throw me off your trail, did you? Knew mighty well I'd cutthe heart out of the man who shot poor Shep." The voice of the cattledetective rang out in malignant triumph. "You guessed it c'rect, seh.Right here's where the Boone-Bellamy feud claims another victim."

  The men were sitting face to face, so close that their knees almosttouched. As Norris jerked out his gun Bellamy caught his wrist. Theystruggled for an instant, the one to free his arm, the other to retain hisgrip. Bellamy spurred his horse closer. The more powerful of the two, heslowly twisted around the imprisoned wrist. Inch by inch the revolverswung in a jerky, spasmodic circle. There was a moment when it pointeddirectly at the mine owner's heart. His enemy's finger crooked on thetrigger, eyes passionate with the stark lust to kill. But the pressure onthe wrist had numbed the hand. The weapon jumped out of line, wentclattering down into the dust from the palsied fingers.

  Lee ran forward and pushed between the men.

  "Here. Ain't you boys got ary bettah sense than to clinch like wildcats?"he demanded, jerking one of the horses away by the bridle. "No, you don't,Phil. I'll take keer of this gun for the present." It was noticeable thatBeauchamp Lee's speech grew more after the manner of the plantations whenhe became excited.

  The cowpuncher, white with anger, glared at his enemy and poured curses athim, the while he nursed his strained wrist. For the moment he wasimpotent, but he promised himself vengeance in full when they should meetagain.

  "That'll be enough from you now, Phil," said the old ex-Confederategood-naturedly, leading him toward the house and trying to soothe hismalevolent chagrin.

  Bellamy turned and rode away. At the corner of the corral he met JackFlatray riding up.

  "Been having a little difference of opinion with our friend, haven't you,seh?" the deputy asked pleasantly.

  "Yes." Bellamy gave him only the crisp monosyllable and changed thesubject immediately. "What about this stage robbery? Have you been able tomake anything of it, Mr. Flatray?"

  "Why, yes. I reckon we'll be able to land the miscreant mebbe, if thingscome our way," drawled the deputy. "Wouldn't it be a good idea to offer areward, though, to keep things warm?"

  "I thought of that. I made it a thousand dollars. The posters ought to beout to-day on the stage."

  "Good enough!"

  "Whom do you suspect?"

  Jack looked at him with amiable imperturbability. "I reckon I bettercertify my suspicions, seh, before I go to shouting them out."

  "All right, sir. Since I'm paying the shot, it ought to entitle me to someconfidence. But it's up to you. Get back the twenty thousand dollars,that's all I ask, except that you put the fellow behind the bars of thepenitentiary for a few years."

  Flatray gave him an odd smile which he did not understand.

  "I hope to be able to accommodate you, seh, about this time to-morrow, sofar as getting the gold goes. You'll have to wait a week or two beforethe rest of your expectations get gratified."

  "Any reasonable time. I want to see him there eventually. That's all."

  Jack laughed again, without giving any reason for his mirth. That ironicsmile continued to decorate his face for some time. He seemed to have someinner source of mirth he did not care to disclose.