Chapter XII

Whoever it was trying to get in at the rear door suddenly desisted; Sam Pepper had gone to infinite pains to make sure that all doors were barred, all windows fastened. There was a brief silence while Torrance cocked an ear against the slightest sound. Then he heard quiet voices, though he could not make out the words, and after that there came a sharp rapping.

“Well?” demanded Torrance then. “Who’s there?”

A voice answered quickly, “That you, Torrance?” And then another voice spoke up, giving him a start, saying eagerly: “Oh, Jim! Let us in!”

Sally Dawn’s voice! And she should be safely out of all this, many a mile away. He unbarred the door and jerked it open, and Sally Dawn hurried in, and with her came a young fellow, lean and lanky, whom Torrance didn’t recognize at first but presently, in a better light, remembered as Dave Drennen, that upstanding young rancher who was neighbor and friend of the Cannons and, if the look in his eye meant anything, a pretty warm admirer of Sally Dawn.

“Jim!” she exclaimed. “Oh, I’m so glad! You’re all right then?”

“Anyone else with you two?” he asked, and when she said, “No, just Dave and me,” he shut and barred the door and led the way toward the other room. On his way he demanded, “What in thunder brings you here?”

“We got the message that Sam sent; that you and Bill Yarbo had been hurt. And did you think for one minute that I wouldn’t come to try to help?”

“Why should you?” he asked curtly.

“After all you had done for me--did you think--”

“Here’s company, boys,” said Torrance.

Sam had already popped out of his corner and came hurrying, the most relieved looking man imaginable, and Bill Yarbo, also looking glad, though his face was drawn with pain, again made his attempt to come up on his elbow.

“Howdy, Sally! Howdy!” cried Sam. And then, “Howdy, Dave! Say, this is great!”

Bill Yarbo muttered something. Sally Dawn, standing in the middle of the room, her hair wind-blown, her cheeks bright with the nip of the night air, her eyes shining, looked them all over. Longest of all did she study Jim Torrance; she saw that his dark lean face looked haggard; she saw that his eyes looked hard between their narrowed lids; but she saw too that he was not as badly hurt as she had feared. Then she hurried to Bill Yarbo and went down on her knees beside him.

“Poor old Bill,” she said gently. “I’m here to doctor you, Bill.”

“For which thank God!” said Bill Yarbo fervently. “Sam Pepper’s been trying his damnedest to kill me.”

She laughed at him and patted his hand and then held it tightly in her two. Bill Yarbo settled back with a long sigh.

Torrance turned to Dave Drennen.

“Well, what’s it all about?” he asked bluntly. “What are you two doing up here? What did you let this girl come for?”

Drennen grinned.

“You try to stop her when she makes up her mind about anything she’s got her heart set on. Try it sometime, Torrance.”

“There’s no sense she should go sticking her nose into any more danger than she has to.”

“I’m safer right here than I’d be anywhere around Sundown,” said Sally Dawn, and sounded triumphant.

“You are not,” said Torrance angrily. “Steve Bordereau--”

“We know where Steve Bordereau is at this minute, Dave and I!” she said exultantly; and, by way of telling Mr. Jim Torrance what she thought of him for the sort of welcome he had given her, she wrinkled up her nose and put out the tip of her tongue at him. “Don’t we, Dave?” She fairly drenched young Drennen with a smile; let Jim Torrance take stock of that, too!

“What’s all this?” cried Sam Pepper, electrified. “What do you know about Bordereau? How do you know where he is? And does he know--”

“Let’s have it,” said Torrance.

“And,” said Sally Dawn, still exultant and meaning to let Mr. Jim Torrance learn that she knew a thing or two that might interest him, “Steve Bordereau and the men with him have a lot of gold--some looking like it had just been dug out of the ground, some in what looked like a lot of twenty dollar pieces! And I hope they get to quarreling over it--”

“Why, Sally Dawn!” yipped Sam Pepper. “That’s your gold, every ounce of it! They--”

“What!” cried Sally Dawn, her eyes seeming to grow as big and round and bright as any of those twenty dollar gold pieces.

“We’re not getting ahead very fast with anything,” grunted Torrance. “Seems as though the more there is to be explained, the more words get poured out and the less gets said. Suppose, young lady, that you or Dave Drennen here tells us what you know about Bordereau and where he is.”

She drew a deep breath and pulled off her hat and pushed the tumbled hair back from her face. Then between them she and Drennen got their story told.

Immediately on getting word of a part of what had happened up here, of both Torrance and Yarbo being wounded, she had insisted on coming to do her part; if they were hurt it was in her quarrel, wasn’t it? Drennen had done all that any mere man could to deter her, and that was nothing at all, so he had come along. They had taken the longer but more open way coming up through the Flats. It grew dark when they were several miles south of Pocket Valley. About a mile from the old abandoned mine road they had glimpsed a light through the trees; Dave Drennen knew the ranch with its clutter of tumble-down buildings and corrals--

“Turkey-trot Smith’s place, I’ll bet a hat!” put in Sam Pepper, and slapped his bony thigh. “It would be just the place--”

“We didn’t see Turkey-trot, though,” said Drennen.

“You wouldn’t!” said Sam. “Jim shot him, and thereby saved Bill Yarbo’s life!”

“Liar!” snorted Bill Yarbo, weak but not too weak to refute Sam’s libel. “Me, I shot him and--”

“Dave told me about the place,” Sally Dawn hurried on, “and how Turkey-trot was suspected of hiding stolen stock there, and how he and Steve Bordereau had been thick as thieves--and we stopped and looked at the light and got to wondering. And just then we heard somebody coming up the trail behind us, riding hard, and we ducked into the timber and watched for him to go by. Only he didn’t go by! He was coming up from Sundown-way the same as we were; at a dead run he swung into the side trail and went straight on to Turkey-trot’s ranch. And we followed him!”

Torrance withdrew his eyes from her to glance accusingly at young Drennen. Drennen heaved up his shoulders.

“Me, I couldn’t stop her,” he muttered. “And anyhow, the way things worked out, it was all right.”

The man whom they followed at a respectful distance, themselves making a cautious arc through the timber, proved to be a certain fox-faced, narrow-eyed youth whom Torrance remembered, a man named Brill, and he went straight to Bordereau. It seemed that Murdo had sent out two men the day before to warn Bordereau that trouble was afoot, to tell him of the discovery in the Sundown graveyard and all the rest of that night’s events. When no report had come back to Murdo, he had sent Brill out, and Brill, taking the old road through the Flats, had seen the light at Turkey-trot Smith’s and judged he’d get the latest word of Bordereau there.

He had scarcely called out at the house and swung down and got himself admitted when Sally Dawn and Dave Drennen, their own horses hidden among the trees behind the barn, crept up to the rear of the house. They could peek through a crack in a warped old shutter, could see quite clearly what was going on inside, and could even catch a few words.

“And we saw the gold,” said Sally Dawn. “It was in a heap on a table. I think Steve Bordereau was keeping nearly all of it for himself, but doling a little bit out to the others. What did Sam mean by saying it belonged to me?”

They told her and she said thoughtfully: “Daddy used to keep a good bit of gold on hand; he lost a lot in a bank that failed once, and after that he wouldn’t have anything to do with banks. But we always thought he kept it down at home, on the ranch. And so now Steve Bordereau has that, too! Oh!”

“You say you heard part of what they were saying tonight?” Torrance prompted her.

“Yes. That was just after Pete Brill burst in on them. He was telling them that Murdo had sent him; he told them about you and me coming back to Sundown and how you knew he was alive and how you brought the body of Doc Taylor back to the Stag Horn and accused either him or Murdo or both of the murder. Steve Bordereau was limping up and down--he seemed to have been hurt in the thigh or side--and I never saw a man look so furious! He began yelling your name, Jim. And he seemed to blame me, too; he swore he’d get everything I had on earth and”--she shuddered--“and that he’d get me, too.”

“And then?” asked Torrance coldly.

“That was about all we got to hear, wasn’t it, Dave? The men were all excited and stirring about and one of them started toward a door and we ran back to our horses and hurried on here.”

Torrance, who had been leaning against the chimney, moved toward the kitchen.

“Come ahead, Drennen,” he said. “Let’s take care of your horses.”

“We brought some grain for them,” said Sally Dawn. “And for your horses too. And we brought some food and some bandages and a bottle of whisky--”

Torrance kept on going and Dave Drennen followed him out. A few minutes later Drennen returned bringing the things Sally Dawn had mentioned. She was already busy with Bill Yarbo; she gave him a big shot of whisky and in return he gave her such a look of gratitude as one doesn’t see often. Drennen then went out again to lend further help to Torrance with the stock.

“He pretends his hurt don’t amount to anything,” he said from the door, “but it sort of looks to me he’s riding on his nerve. He oughtn’t to be out in the cold.”

“Make him hurry back in, Dave,” pleaded Sally Dawn.

But when again the door opened, it was to admit Drennen, returning alone.

“Torrance says to tell you, Sally, you better get back to your own home soon’s you can, and you better stay there, being as after this you’ll be safer near Sundown than anywhere else. And he says you get some friends of yours, men like Sam and Bill and me, about half a dozen good men, he says, to stick close night and day. And he says put ’em all on your pay roll and you can pay ’em out of that gold when you get it back, and if you can’t, he’ll pay ’em himself. And he says--”

She sprang to her feet, exclaiming: “Dave Drennen! What are you talking about? Why doesn’t Jim--”

“He’s gone,” said Drennen. “Gone hell-for-leather!”

“Gone! Where?”

“How do I know? He didn’t say. He just went.”

“Why didn’t you stop him?” she wailed.

“There you go,” muttered Drennen. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “Torrance says why didn’t I stop you--you say why didn’t I stop him! You two just try stopping each other, once, will you?”

* * * * *

Because the night was clear with frosty, glittering stars, and because there were patches of snow where the side road turned off, Jim Torrance was enabled to hit upon the trampled trail of many horses leading through the woods to the Turkey-trot Smith place. Otherwise he must have passed it, since there was no light in the house to guide him.

He rode, as Sally Dawn and young Drennen had ridden, in a wide arc through the timber and to a place behind the old barn. Like them still, he went forward on foot, but he did his first bit of reconnoitering at the barn itself; it was dead still, with never the sound of a stamping horse. He moved on to the house and stood listening; the silence remained unbroken save for the faint rustle of wind through the tree tops.

He went up the back steps and found the door open. After that he knew that already Steve Bordereau, perhaps because of a new slant at things afforded by the news brought by Murdo’s messenger, had led his men elsewhere. Still, to be dead sure, he stepped in through the open door. Again, after he had waited a long minute and heard never a sound, he moved forward; he didn’t immediately strike a match, because he thought: “If any of them are here, the dark’s all in my favor. They won’t dare indulge in any wild shooting, and there are no friends of mine here to stop a bullet!”

At last, however, he did strike a match; he had been on the verge of retreating without doing so, but knew he’d never be quite satisfied that way. As the match flared up, his first thought was, “Not a man here.” And then he saw something, and whipped his gun over and thought, “There’s one of ’em, sleeping on the floor.”

The man’s sleep was one that nothing on earth could ever break. Torrance stooped over him; he lay on his back, his arms outflung, his eyes glittering ceilingward in the flare of the match. Torrance didn’t know the man by name but remembered his face well enough, one of Bordereau’s followers, a burly, beetle-browed, heavy-jawed fellow who looked stubborn and sullen even in death. He had been shot through the head.

Torrance’s match burnt out and he did not strike another. When he left the room he at least closed the door behind him, a thing that Bordereau hadn’t troubled to do. He didn’t worry himself greatly trying to figure out why this man had been killed. Bordereau’s work no doubt, since Bordereau was undisputed leader over his wolf pack. Maybe Sally Dawn had been right when she sensed the likelihood of a quarrel over the division of King Cannon’s gold; this man had the look of one who would speak up for himself. And if Bordereau had shot him in cold blood-- Well, those others who still clung to him would be apt to watch their steps.

In the saddle again he rode slowly, trying to pick up the trail of the riders who had so recently departed. He found it with little difficulty. They had cut straight back into the old road, then had turned south. That meant back down toward the Flats, toward Sundown.

But within three or four miles all tracks faded out, because down here there had been little snow, which had melted already, and there were many rocky ridges and slopes on which it would be hard to find tracks even by day. Bordereau might have ridden straight on, hammering out the miles to Sundown or to some hide-out near town, or just as conceivably could have turned aside somewhere along the way.

Jim Torrance didn’t waste time looking for signs which he had such scant hope of finding, but pressed on toward his own place, which he reached at that bright moment when all along the crests of the ridges creating the broken line of the eastern horizon, gleaming strips of red and gold were being spread as for a carpet for the advent of the new day. As the rim of a red sun came up he was rapping at Sam Pepper’s door. Mrs. Sam, already up and dressed, came bustling to open for him.

“You!” she exclaimed. “But--”

A couple of men, two of the party who had officiated with him at the graveyard, both staunch friends of the Peppers as well as of Sally Dawn, pushed back chairs in an adjoining room and came to the door, as eager as Mrs. Sam. Torrance got a delectable whiff of breakfast, bacon and coffee floating out their fragrances on the sweet morning air.

After breaking off with a “But--,” suspended in mid-air, Mrs. Sam invited warmly: “But come in, Mr. Torrance. Breakfast is ready, and you can tell us over a cup of coffee. I’ll bet you haven’t had one yet!”

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Jim Torrance.

Over the table he brought them the latest news. They heard him out in utter silence, their faces tense and earnest. At the end, he said:

“Me, I’ve got a little of my own business to tend to. It would be a good idea if several of the boys went straight up to where Sam and Bill and Sally Dawn and Drennen are, just to be on hand. We’ve had one storm, we might get another, and it would be tough on them, the way they are, if they got snowbound. I don’t think you can drag Bill Yarbo out inside a week. I’ll see you later.”

He went back to his own place and attended to his stock....

A couple of hours later the two men, with Mrs. Sam insisting on going along, left for King Cannon’s old mountain home. When they arrived, about the first thing Sally Dawn said was,

“Where’s Jim Torrance?”

They didn’t know.

They had stopped at his house; they found a man there he had sent out from Sundown to care for the place. Mrs. Sam just shook her head and said, “Gone.”