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He hesitated for an instant on the sidewalk, and a voice, seeming to come from nowhere in particular, whispered in his ear: "Neal Taggart's layin' for you!" When Calumet wheeled, his six-shooter was in his hand. At his shoulder, having evidently followed him from across the street, stood a man. He was lean-faced, hardy-looking, with a strong, determined jaw and steady, alert eyes.
"Correct," said Calumet; "how you knowin' me?" "Knowed your dad," said the sheriff. "You look a heap like him. Besides," he added as his eyes twinkled, "there ain't no one else in this section doin' any buildin' now." "I'm sure much obliged for your interest," said Calumet. "An' so Taggart's lookin' for me?" "Been in town a week," continued the sheriff.
"Friends!" he said; "he's green an' due for a shock!" Either Taggart or the proprietor had made a mistake in their estimate of Calumet. For at the instant Taggart had sneered at Calumet to his friends, the bartender, who had come in while Taggart and Calumet had been talking, leaned over to listen to the proprietor. "In Taggart's place," said the proprietor, "I'd be mighty careful of that man.
Taggart made no answer save by taking a pinch of snuff. The reader has, I hope, not forgotten Taggart, whom I mentioned whilst giving an account of my first morning's visit to the publisher. I beg Taggart's pardon for having been so long silent about him; but he was a very silent man yet there was much in Taggart and Taggart had always been civil and kind to me in his peculiar way.
Neither could Taggart see the ranchhouse, for there were intervening hills and the slope itself was a ridge which effectually shut off Taggart's view. But neither hills or ridge were in Calumet's line of vision. Kneeling in the gully he watched the wagon. Presently he saw Betty come out and stand on the porch.
That's how you guarded it how you filled your trust." She gazed fixedly at him and his gaze dropped. "You are determined to continue your insults," she said coldly. He reddened. "I reckon you deserve them," he said sneeringly. "Taggart's makin' a fool of you. I heard him palaverin' to you last night. I followed him, but lost him. Then I got into the clearin' in the timber.
"Publicly, I ain't takin' no side. Privately, I'm feelin' different. Knowed your dad. Taggart's bad medicine for this section. Different with you." "How different?" "Straight up. Anybody that lives around Betty Clayton's got to be." Calumet looked at him with a crooked smile. "I reckon," he said, "that you don't know any more about women than I do. So-long," he added.
I got three jacks in January myself with the rifle, and found them very good to eat; but the first one, after skinning it, I left overnight in the shed, and in the morning it was gone. That day I went to Taggart's and got two good bolts and put them on the shed door.
Taggart made no answer save by taking a pinch of snuff. The reader, has, I hope, not forgotten Taggart, whom I mentioned whilst giving an account of my first morning's visit to the publisher. I beg Taggart's pardon for having been so long silent about him; but he was a very silent man yet there was much in Taggart and Taggart had always been civil and kind to me in his peculiar way.
Calumet bent over him again; the name sounded foreign. "Talk sense," he said shortly; "who's Telza?" "A Toltec Indian," said the man. "He's been hangin' around here for a month. Around the Arrow, too. Mebbe two months. Nobody knows. He's like a shadow. Now you see him an' now you don't," he added with a grim attempt at a joke. "Taggart's had me trailin' him, lookin' for a diagram he's got."
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