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Updated: May 17, 2025
He rose from the rock, made his way deliberately down the hillside, mounted his pony, and struck the trail leading to the Two Diamond ranchhouse. About noon Leviatt and Tucson rode in to the Two Diamond corral gate, dismounted from their ponies, and proceeded to the bunkhouse for dinner.
His passion checked, the structure erected by his imagination toppled to ruin, his vanity hurt, he stood before her stripped of the veneer that had made him seem, heretofore, nearly the man he professed to be. In her note book had been written: "Dave Leviatt. . . . One rather gets the impression that the stoop is a reflection of the man's nature, which seems vindictive and suggests a low cunning.
Tucson sighed, placed both hands to his chest, and pitched forward headlong, stretching his length in the sand. For an instant Leviatt stood rigid, his left arm swinging helplessly by his side, broken by the stray-man's bullet, an expression of surprise and fear in his eyes. Then with a sudden, savage motion he dragged again at his gun. One of the stray-man's guns crashed again, sharply.
"Anything new?" questioned the latter, as he had questioned Leviatt. "Nothin' doin'," returned Ferguson. Leviatt now turned from the window. He spoke to Stafford, sneering. "Ben Radford's quite a piece away from where he's hangin' out," he said. He again turned to the window. Ferguson's lips smiled, but his eyes narrowed. Stafford stiffened in his chair.
Then she walked past Leviatt, picked her way daintily over the loose stones on the hillside, and descended to the level where she had tethered her pony. Ben stood grinning admiringly after her as she mounted and rode out into the flat. Then he turned to Leviatt, soberly contemplating him. "I don't think you were rehearsing for the book," he said quietly, an undercurrent of humor in his voice.
Some cowboys were scattered over this plain, and before riding very far Ferguson came upon Rope. The latter spurred close to him, grinning. "I'm right glad to see you," said the puncher. "You've been keepin' yourself pretty scarce. Scared of another run-in with Leviatt?" "Plum scared," returned Ferguson. "I reckon that man'll make me nervous give him time." "Yu' don't say?" grinned Rope.
Since the day when in the manager's office, Ferguson had walked across the floor to return to Leviatt the leather tobacco pouch that the latter had dropped in the depression on the ridge above the gully where the stray-man had discovered the dead Two Diamond cow and her calf, Leviatt had known that the stray-man suspected him of being leagued with the rustlers.
But what had become of the dogie? What would have been Leviatt's duty, after the departure of the rustlers? Obviously to drive the calf to the herd and report the occurrence to the manager. Leviatt may have driven the calf to the herd, but assuredly he had not reported the occurrence to the manager, for he had not been in to the ranchhouse. Why not?
"I ain't sayin' you're a liar, but what you've said makes you liable to be called that until you've proved you ain't. How do you know Ferguson's been hired to put me out of business?" Leviatt laughed. "Stafford an' me went to Dry Bottom to get a gunfighter. I shot a can in the street in front of the Silver Dollar so's Stafford would be able to get a line on anyone tryin' to beat my game.
She's told me that she's goin' to make him a character in the book she's writing. Likely she's stringing him." "I reckon she ain't stringin' him," declared Leviatt. "A girl ain't doin' much stringin' when she's holdin' a man's hand an' blushin' when somebody ketches her at it." There was a slight sneer in Leviatt's voice which drew a sharp glance from Radford.
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