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A comprehensive light gleamed in Harlan's eyes. "They move," he said shortly. "Drive them where you've been drivin' them." As though he had been giving orders to the outlaws all his life, he briskly mentioned the names of the men who were to form the trail herd. Not a man dissented.
The thought that during all the days he had spent at the Rancho Seco, his movements had been watched by the man who had just killed Haydon, brought a glow of ironic humor to Harlan's eyes. During a long interval, through which Billy Morgan stood over Haydon, watching him with a cold savagery, Harlan kept at a respectable distance, also watching. He saw that for Haydon the incident had been fatal.
He remembered Lane Morgan's words: "John Haydon is dead stuck on Barbara;" and he had wondered ever since the meeting in Lamo if Barbara returned Haydon's affection, or if she trusted Haydon enough to confide in him. Barbara's attitude toward Haydon would affect Harlan's attitude toward the girl.
The frankness with which his grandfather had exposed the code by which he and his ilk operated in politics, making tricks, subterfuge, and downright dishonesty an integral part of the game and entitled to absolution, had divorced Harlan's straightforward sympathies when the question came to issue between his own relative, complacently unscrupulous, and General Waymouth, heroically casting off bonds of friendship and political affiliations, and standing for what was obviously the right.
For into Harlan's face had come an expression that, she thought, she could analyze. It was jealousy. That was why he was reluctant to return the chain to Haydon. The situation was so positively puerile, she thought, that she almost felt like laughing.
Meeder Lawson's face was sullen and full of impotent rage, and he watched Deveny with a gaze of bitter accusation when he saw that the big man intended to obey Harlan's order. Barbara's pursuer, having felt Deveny's angry gaze upon him, and being uncomfortably conscious that Harlan had not forgotten him, was red of face and self-conscious.
Harlan turned, sheathing his pistol, and began to walk toward his horse, his back toward Deveny. Then Deveny acted. His eyes flaming hate, he drew his pistol with a flashing movement, his face hideous with malignant passion. He sent one bullet into Harlan's back and two more as Harlan tumbled forward, sinking to his knees from the shock.
Seems to me that if it wasn't for Haydon, Deveny, or Lawson, or Rogers, or some of them scum would have run off with Barbara long ago. "You see how she shapes up?" he queried as he watched Harlan's face. "Looks bad for Barbara," said Harlan slowly. Morgan writhed and was silent for a time.
For Deveny's fear had gone, now that the dread presence had centered its attention elsewhere, and he was determined to discover the secret of Harlan's hesitating "draw," the curious movement that had given the man his sobriquet, "Drag." The discovery of that secret might mean much to him in the future; it might even mean life to him if Harlan decided to remain in the section.
I seen him put Lefty Blandin' out. He starts for his guns, an' then kind of stops, trickin' the other guy into goin' for his. Then, before the other guy can get his gun to workin', Harlan's stickin' his away, an' the guy's ready for the mourners. "Harlan got his handle that way. He goes for his guns so slow an' hesitatin' that he seems to drag 'em out. But some way he's always shootin' first.
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