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Updated: June 21, 2025
He thought she referred to a possible meeting with Barger. He was almost swept from his balance by her look, for a bright bit of moisture had sprung in her eyes and her smile took on a tenderness that all but conquered him anew. "I delivered your letter in Starlight," he said. "I return your brother's reply." He had taken the letter from his pocket. He held it forth. She took it.
It was fully an hour after leaving the pass, where Barger had piled in the rock, before the horseman and his broncho dropped again in the trail that led onward to the river. Van was again in the saddle. Alert for possible surprises, but assured that his man could find no adequate cover hereabouts, he emerged from behind the last of the turns all eagerness to give his horse a drink.
Barger rose up and cursed himself for not having risked a shot. He dared not attempt a dash upon his man; he could not know where Van might again be intercepted; he was helpless, baffled, enraged. Half starved, keenly alive only in his instinct to accomplish his revenge, the creature was more like a hunted, retaliating animal than like a man.
It was the period of William H. Vanderbilt's ascendancy in Western Union control; and the railroad millionnaire and his companions, Hamilton McK. Twombly, James H. Banker, Samuel F. Barger, Alonzo B. Cornell, Augustus Schell, William Orton, were objects of great interest to the young office boy. Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas A. Edison were also constant visitors to the department.
They were past the walls in the briefest time, and Van attacked the slope. Barger came after, yelling in rage. He tripped, and his hurt leg dropped him down. Already wearied, and famished for drink, Suvy nevertheless rose to the needs of the moment with a strength incredible. He scaled that sandy, treacherous slope like an engine built for the purpose.
Trimmer had smoked his cigar to within an inch of his mouth. He extinguished the fire and chewed up the stump voraciously. "Say!" he suddenly ejaculated, leaping to his feet and coming around the table, "I can fix him all right," and he lowered his voice to a whisper. "Barger would give up a leg to git a show at Van Buren!" "Barger?" echoed McCoppet. "Matt? But they got him! Got 'em all."
Barger had a grievance, howsoever mistaken, that was adequate. He was following his bent consistently. He had made his threat in the open; he must plan out his work according to his wits. He was simply a hunted beast, who turned upon his hunters. It was Bostwick on whom Van concentrated a rising heat and he promised the man would find things warm in camp, and the fight only well under way.
Like an old, half-buried pile, reluctant to budge from its bed in sand and ooze, the human form was slowly dragged from the place. No corpse, rudely snatched from its grave, could have been more helplessly inert more stretched out of all living semblance to a man. Across the firmer sand, and through a lagoon of water, Barger was hurriedly drawn.
"He's in luck to " then to himself, as he continued to scan the scene for something he did not apparently find. "By Jupe! I'd have sworn Matt Barger " He broke off abruptly, adding in a spirit of fairness, "Searle is getting right up to the ridge all right. Good boy! He must have a powerful motor under the There! By George! I knew it! I knew it! Got him! right there in the gravel!"
"There's ten thousand dollars in Barger," he said. "And I guess you could use the money. There's nothing but glory in gittin' Cayuse, but I'll give you your pick of the pair." That some half-formed notion of procuring a secret survey of the reservation line, in his own behalf, had occupied Van's thoughts somewhat insistently, was quite to be expected.
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