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Updated: May 19, 2025
In an instant Randerson was inside the cabin. Ruth lay prone, where she had fallen. Randerson, pale, grim-lipped, leaned over her. "Fainted!" he decided. He stepped to the man and turned him over roughly. "Chavis," he ejaculated, his lips hardening. "Bored a-plenty!" he added, with vindictive satisfaction. He saw Ruth's weapon, noted the gash in Chavis' forehead, and smiled.
It awakened in her the knowledge that she could defend herself, that the courage for which she had prayed that night when on the rock where Randerson had found her, was lurking deep, ready to answer her summons. She laughed at Chavis, and when she saw him wipe the blood from his face and look at her in bewilderment, she challenged him peremptorily: "Go now, you beast!"
She would have struck him as she had struck Chavis had she not been positive that behind his words was the utmost respect that he did not intend to be impertinent that he seemed as natural as he had been all along. She would have exhibited scorn if she could have summoned it. She did nothing but stare at him in genuine amazement.
"I suppose I could have Chavis charged with stealing those two calves?" she asked, as they rode. She looked back over her shoulder at him and slowed her pony down so that he came alongside. "Why, yes, ma'am, I reckon you could. You could charge him with stealin' them. But that wouldn't prove it. We ain't got any evidence, you see. We found the cows, with the calves gone.
Randerson could not adjust his principles to his purpose to do Masten to death while working for Ruth, and so, in the morning following his meeting with the Easterner on the trail leading to Chavis' shack, he announced to the men of the outfit that he was going to quit. He told Red Owen to take charge until Ruth could see him. Glum looks followed his announcement.
"Willard," she said, her lips white and stiff, "there must be no double-dealing between you and me. Tom Chavis told me yesterday that you are interested in a waitress in Lazette. Is that true?" He started, flushed darkly, and then smiled blandly. "Tom Chavis is romancing, my dear. If there is a waitress in Lazette I have not seen her." He seized her by the shoulders and spoke earnestly.
An' one of them don't care how much he loves the other." He laughed as though the matter were one of high comedy. His manner, the half-veiled, vulgar significance of his words and voice, roused her to a cold fury. She took a step toward him and stood rigid, her eyes flashing. "You get out of this cabin, Tom Chavis!" she commanded. "Get out instantly!"
She would have instructed Vickers to attend to that, but Vickers had gone again to Red Rock on business, and would not return for two or three days. She would wait until Vickers returned to discharge Chavis, but she must tell Masten of the insult, for she yearned to see Chavis punished. Reaching them, she faced him fairly.
He swung his chair around and faced her, and forgetting his pipe in his excitement, he told her the story he had told Randerson: how he had gone into the messhouse on the day of the killing of Pickett, for a rest and a smoke, and how, while in there he had overheard Chavis and Pickett plotting against Randerson, planning Pickett's attack on her, mentioning Masten's connection with the scheme.
Cursing, crouching, evidently still awaiting an opportunity to draw his gun, Pickett began to walk toward the ranchhouse, Randerson close behind him. At a safe distance, the other men followed Ruth saw Masten and Chavis come out of the bunkhouse door and follow also. The thought struck her that they must have witnessed the incident from a window.
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