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On the instant that Jim Courtot's hand left his pile of coins, Alan Howard's boots left the floor. The cattleman threw himself forward and across the table almost with his last word. Courtot came up from his chair, a short-barrelled revolver in his hand. But, before he was well on his feet, before the short barrel had made its required brief arc, Howard's blow landed.
To-night's work was largely the work of Jim Courtot, and because of it Dry Gulch, which might have poured great heaps of gold at Helen's feet, was being wrangled over by a hundred men. He thought of that and he thought of other things, of how Courtot had fired on him from the dark long ago, of how Courtot was hunting him after Courtot's own tenacious fashion.
There was better light here; the trail was less narrow and steep; they could look down and see the light in the cabin. Later they were to know just what had been Sanchia Murray's quick reply to their move. And then they were to know, too, where Jim Courtot's hang-out had been during these last weeks in which he had seemed to vanish.
While his five companions brought their parcels into the place, Emberlee climbed aloft and nailed up a big board upon which his own hand, as the wagon had jostled along, had painted a sign. It spelled: JIM COURTOT'S HOUSE. Then he descended and began a hurried grouping of certain articles upon shelves and in corners.
By the time the camp was ready for a noon meal the word had flown about that at Jim Courtot's House one could get food, water and a widely-known substitute for whisky. Meantime Tony Moraga had come: he stood behind a bar hastily made of two planks set on packing cases and sold a tin cup of water for twenty-five cents, a glass of liquor for fifty. There were calls for both.
Howard, his anger standing higher and hotter, threw himself to the back of Barbee's roan and left Big Run riding furiously from the jump. He knew the horse; it could stand the pace across the few miles and there was no time to lose. There was scant enough likelihood as matters were of his coming to Last Ridge before Courtot's crowd.
And there would be occasion for Jim Courtot's jeering laugh tomorrow. Before the smoke had cleared from Monte's gun Howard leaped closer, and at this close range fired. He saw Monte reel back. He knew that Ed True was still shooting, but he did not care. Monte was stumbling, saving himself from falling, straightening again, lifting his gun.
Down in San Ramon Pony Lee knows; at the court-house it is known. Men give tips to their friends. Courtot's crowd knows. Out here my men know; Carr and Barbee know. Already there are a hundred men, maybe several times a hundred, who know. And you may be sure that already they are coming like a train of ants. Once gold has been uncovered the secret is out.
That his former simple kindness would have awakened any serious affection had failed to suggest itself to him. But swiftly he forgot Sanchia and her vindictiveness. She had mentioned Courtot; for a little as he rode into the hills he puzzled over Courtot's recurrent disappearances. He recalled how, always when he came to a place where he might expect to find the gambler, he had passed on.
Here of late he was like some sinister will-o'-the-wisp. What was it that urged him? A lure that beckoned? A menace that drove? He thought of Kish Taka. There was a nemesis to dog any man. Jim Courtot had dwelt with the desert Indians; he had come to know in what savage manner they meted out their retributive justice. Was Kish Taka still unsleeping, patient, relentless on Courtot's trail?
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