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"I'm suggesting that on that night of Hollis's visit to Scarnham, Horbury, through Hollis, became acquainted with the Chestermarke secret," replied Easleby, "and that he let the Chestermarkes know it. And in that case what would happen?" Starmidge walked slowly on at his companion's side, thinking.
Whatever excitement had resulted from the sudden discovery that his men had captured a rustler and were about to hang him, together with the strain of his hard ride to the cottonwood, had disappeared, and Hollis's voice was quiet as he addressed his range boss. Norton smiled grimly.
Yuma screamed with pain and rage and got to his feet, holding his injured hand with the other. The pistol lay on the floor where Yuma had dropped it when Hollis's boot had come in contact with his hand. For an instant Yuma stood gripping his hand, his face hideous with passion. Then with a snarl of rage and hate he drew a knife from the folds of his shirt and sprang toward Hollis.
"Mister Hollis," he added, as the latter looked quickly at him, "you ain't heard nothin' from the Circle Bar to-day, I reckon?" Hollis's answer was negative. The Circle Y man's face grew suddenly serious. "You ain't! Well, then, that's the reason you're talkin' so.
Says you're a scrapper from the word go, an' that he'd back you up long as there was a blue coat anywhere in the Territory!" Allen's speech was ungrammatical, but its message was one of good cheer and Hollis's eyes brightened. The Law was coming at last! He could not help but wonder what Dunlavey's feelings would be when he heard of it.
Shortly after noon Ben Allen had dropped into the Kicker office with the news that every owner in the county with the exception of Dunlavey had responded to the law's demands. To Hollis's inquiry regarding the course he would pursue in forcing Dunlavey to comply with the law, Allen remarked with a smile that there was "plenty of time." He had had much experience with men of the Dunlavey type.
"Yes," said the man. He came forward. "I am the new owner of the Kicker," Hollis informed him with a smile. "Jim Hollis's boy?" inquired Potter, straightening. At Hollis's nod he stepped quickly forward and grasped the hand the latter offered him, squeezing it tightly. "Of course you are Jim Hollis's boy!" he said, finishing his inspection. "You are the living image of him!"
He looked again at the hand and then suddenly dove forward to Hollis's side, seized his right hand, peered at the knuckles and held the hand triumphantly aloft. "I reckon this is where I got it!" he grinned. Hollis looked ruefully down at his knuckles. The skin was gashed evidently where it had come in contact with a bone in either Dunlavey's or Yuma's jaw.
"I never heard of it myself until Monday. Well this is all very queer, Mr. Simmons. What does Mr. Polke think? And what's Mr. Polke got to suggest!" Polke, who had been listening silently, turned to the clerk. "Did you chance to look at Mr. Hollis's letters recent letters, I mean " he asked, "to see if you would find anything inviting him down here?" "I did," replied Simmons promptly.
The chase leads past fields of tasseled Indian corn, with yellowing thickly swathed ears, leaning heavily from the stalk; past wheat-lands, the crops harvested and the crab-grass having its day at last; past "woods-lots" and their black shadows, and out again into the September sunshine; past rickety little homes, not unlike Hollis's own, with tow-headed children, exactly like his, standing with wide eyes, looking at the rush and hurry of the pursuit sometimes in the ill-kept yards a wood-fire is burning under the boiling sorghum kettle, or beneath the branches of the orchard near at hand a cider-mill is crushing the juice out of the red and yellow, ripe and luscious apples.
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