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I have literally projected myself into your work, and I am afraid that I have caused you trouble. Mrs. Otto has told me of this man they call Quade. She says he is dangerous. And I have made him your enemy." "I am, not afraid of Quade. The incident was nothing more than an agreeable interruption to what was becoming a rather monotonous existence up here.
All of these things went through his head, as he jogged his mustang back down the hill. He turned in at Mason's place. All at once he recalled that he was not acting normally. He had just come from seeing the dead body of his best friend. And yet so mortal was his concern for his own safety that he felt not the slightest touch of grief or horror for dead Quade.
He saw by their lowered eyes that they were hating him. He felt it in the savage grip of their hands, as they lifted him and put him into Quade's saddle. Quade was the largest, and it was mutely accepted that he should be the first to walk, while Sinclair rode. It was accepted by all except Quade, that is to say.
Again Quade leaned over the table, and for a moment there was silence, a silence in which Aldous thought the pounding of his heart must betray him. He lay motionless on the floor. The nails of his fingers dug into the bare wood. Under the palm of his right hand lay his automatic. Then Quade spoke.
This dead man what's his name, Quade? was killed by a gent that had a reason for killing him. Wanted to get Quade's money, or they was an old grudge. But what could my reason be for wanting to bump off Quade? Can any of you figure that out? There's my things. Look through 'em and see if I got Quade's money. Maybe you think it's a grudge?
"I've got something to say to you and Bill. Then eat me alive if you want to. Do you want to be square enough to give me a word?" Quade had settled back sickly on his stool. The others had stopped, waiting. The quiet and insolently confident smile had not left Aldous' lips. "You'll feel better in a few minutes, Bill," he consoled.
Only once before had Aldous seen MacDonald employ greater haste, and that was on the night of the attack on Joanne. He was convinced there was no doubt in Donald's mind about the rifle-shot, and that the shot could mean but one thing the nearness of Mortimer FitzHugh and Quade. Why they should reveal their presence in that way he did not ask himself as he hurried down into the plain with Joanne.
Self-pity warmed him and loosened his fierceness. He sighed with regret for his own misfortunes. In this frame of mind he reached Sour Creek and its hotel. While he wrote his name in the yellowed register he over-heard loud conversation in the farther end of the room. Two men had been outlawed that day John Gaspar, the schoolteacher who killed Quade, and Riley Sinclair, a stranger from the North.
The last word was scarcely out of his mouth when the room was in darkness a darkness so complete and sudden that for an instant his hand faltered, and in that instant he heard the overturning of a chair and the falling of a body. Twice his automatic sent a lightning-flash of fire where Culver Rann had sat; twice it spat threadlike ribbons of flame through the blackness where Quade had stood.
Those ten minutes among the rocks of the chasm had broken and beaten him until his strength was gone. He was panting from his first onset with Quade, but his brain was working. And he knew that Quade was no longer a reasoning thing. He had ceased to think. He was blind with the passion of the brute, and his one thought was to crush his enemy down under the weight of the club in his huge hands.
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