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He bored Dolver, an' he said that soon as Morgan cashed in he was hittin' the breeze for here!" Lawson, the man who had gone to meet Laskar, ejaculated hoarsely, and stood rigid, his mouth open, his eyes bulging. It was the involuntary expression of the astonishment and fear that had seized him. Laskar forgot the pain in his chest long enough to straighten and grin at Lawson.
It was because Harlan knew he had been with Dolver when Davey Langan had been killed. Latimer thought he had seen a slight relief in Deveny's eyes when he had told the latter that, but he could not be sure, and it was not important. The important thing was that he must kill Harlan and he meant to do it.
The sitting man stiffened, divining the promise of violence; the standing man shrank back a little and looked downward at the pistol in his right hand. The rider saw the glance and laughed lowly. "Keep her right where she is, Dolver," he warned. "You lift her one little wee lift, an' I bore you plumb in the brain-box. Sort of flabbergasted, eh? Didn't expect to run into me again so soon?"
I reckon you're in the game to salivate me." Harlan sheathed his gun. "You're talkin' extravagant, mister man." And now he permitted a cold smile to wreathe his lips. "If it'll do you any good to know," he added, "I've just put Dolver out of business." "I heard that, too," declared the man, laughing bitterly. "I heard you tellin' Dolver.
If I wasn't dead sure he ain't the kind of a guy which goes around shootin' folks in the back, I'd say he pretty near fits the description I got of the man who helped Dolver salivate my side-kicker, Davey Langan, over in Pardo a couple of months ago." Rogers' side glance was pregnant with a grim, unsmiling humor. "So you've picked him out? I've been wonderin' how long it would take you."
I bored Dolver, but I let Laskar off, not havin' the heart to muss up the desert with scum like him." The girl's eyes gleamed for an instant with venomous satisfaction. Then she said, tremulously: "And father?" "I buried him near the rock," returned Harlan, lowly. Soundlessly, closing her eyes, Barbara sank into the dust of the street.
But after he had questioned Laskar and had felt that Laskar was not the accomplice of Dolver in the murder of Langan he had determined to go to the ranch, and had told Morgan of his determination. Now, sitting on the threshold of the Rancho Seco bunkhouse, he realized that his talk with Morgan had brought him here in a different rôle than he had anticipated.
He looked sharply at her, saw that she was now quite composed, and drawing Purgatory to a walk, began to relate to her the incident of the fight at Sentinel Rock. His story was brief brutally brief, she might have thought, had she not been watching his face during the telling, noting the rage that flamed in his eyes when he spoke of Dolver and Laskar and the mysterious "Chief."
It's likely he ain't at that. I've heard, bad as he is, that he plays square. An' if I was runnin' things I'd take a look at him before chargin' him with killin' Lane Morgan, when the killin' had been done by the Chief, an' Dolver, an' Laskar." It was Strom Rogers' voice.
"Said Dolver had shot up his partner, Davey Langan back in Pardo. Harlan was evenin' up." "What do you know about Harlan?" The question was addressed to all of them. Rogers answered. "He's a bad guy all bad. He's an iceberg, an' he's got the snakiest gun-hand of any man in the country. Draws hesitatin'-like. A man don't know when he's goin' to uncork his smoke-wagons.
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