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Updated: May 17, 2025
He himself had not hinted at the reason of his presence at the Two Diamond. And there was only one other man who knew. That man was Leviatt. As he stood beside the door of the lean-to the rage in his heart against the range boss grew more bitter, and the hues around his mouth straightened more grimly.
The following morning Stafford came upon Rope while the latter was throwing the saddle on his pony down at the corral gate. "I heard something about some trouble between Dave Leviatt an' the new stray-man," said Stafford. "I reckon it wasn't serious?" Rope turned a grave eye upon the manager. "Shucks," he returned, "I reckon it wasn't nothin' serious.
"You have spoiled a chapter in my book, Ben," she declared with pretended annoyance; "Mr. Leviatt had just finished proposing to me and was at the point where he was supposed to speak bitter words about his rival." She laughed again, gazing at Leviatt with mocking eyes. "Of course, I shall never be able to tell my readers what he might have said, for you appeared at a most inopportune time.
To none of the men of the outfit did Leviatt or Tucson reveal anything of the nervousness that affected them. They listened to the rough jest, they laughed when the others laughed, they dropped an occasional word of encouragement. They even laughed at jokes in which there was no visible point.
Then Ferguson's lips wreathed into a feline smile. "Kind of dramatic, him ridin' up that-a-way," he said. "Don't you think puttin' him in the book will spoil it, ma'am?" Leviatt rode down through the gully where Miss Radford had first caught sight of Ferguson when he had entered the flat. He disappeared in this and five minutes later came out upon a ridge above it.
From Ben's description of the man who had won the shooting match she had been able to lead Ferguson to the admission that he had been the central character in that incident, and now it had transpired that Leviatt was the man he had beaten. This had been the way she had written it in the story. So far the plot that had been born of her imagination had proved to be the story of a real occurrence.
Meaningless words, as they appear here; meaningless to the group of men and to the Two Diamond manager; yet to Leviatt they were burdened with a dire significance. They told him that the stray-man was aware of his duplicity; they meant perhaps that the stray-man knew of his dealings with the cattle thieves whom he had visited yesterday in the hills near the river.
And then while the snake writhed he saw another head growing upon it, and a face. It was the face of Leviatt; and there was mockery in this face also. While he looked it spoke. "You'll nurse him so's he won't die?" it had said. When he awakened his blood was surging with a riotous anger.
It was while Leviatt and Tucson were in the blacksmith shop that Ferguson had come in. When they came out again the stray-man had disappeared into the manager's office.
For a brief space Leviatt stood, while the full significance of her refusal ate slowly into his consciousness. Whatever hopes he might have had had been swept away in those few short, pithy sentences.
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