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"Grin like you'd just discovered that I'm your rich uncle come from Frisco with a platter full of gold nuggets which I'm set on you spendin' for white shirts. Grin, or I'll salivate you!" It was a grin that wreathed Masten's lips a shallow, forced one. But it sufficed for the rider.
She had known then, that Randerson had expected Pickett's action, and that he had been prepared for it, and therefore it seemed to her that in forcing the trouble Randerson had not only foreseen the ending but had even courted it. Remorse over her momentary doubt of Masten's motive in refusing to call Pickett to account, afflicted her.
Then she sat for another long interval, her elbows on the top of the little stand that she used as a dressing table, her chin in her hands, staring with unseeing eyes into a mirror in front of her or rather, at two faces that seemed to be reflected in the glass: Masten's and Randerson's. Next morning she got downstairs late, to find breakfast over and Randerson gone.
But he shook his head as though to dissipate the effect of it, and came after Masten grimly. Again Masten tried the maneuver, and the jab went home accurately, with force. But when he essayed to drive in the right, it was blocked, and Randerson's right, crooked, rigid, sent with the force of a battering ram, landed fairly on Masten's mouth, with deadening, crushing effect.
She was wondering a little at Masten's silence; it seemed to her that he must see her embarrassment, and that he might relieve her of the burden of this conversation. She looked quickly at him; he appeared to be unconcernedly inspecting the ranchhouse. Perhaps, after all, there was nothing wrong with these men. Certainly, being a man himself, Masten should be able to tell.
"Throwed twice, eh?" said Uncle Jepson to Randerson, when a few minutes later he followed the range boss out on the porch. He grinned at Randerson suspiciously. "Throwed twice, eh?" he repeated. "Masten's face looks like some one had danced a jig on it. Huh! I cal'late that if you was throwed twice, Masten's horse must have drug him!" "You ain't tellin' her!" suggested Randerson.
That vision had vanished now, and she did not care how soon she became Masten's wife. On the porch of the ranchhouse they had reached the agreement, and triumphantly Masten rode away into the darkness, foreseeing the defeat of the man whom he had feared as a possible rival, seeing, too if he could not remove him entirely his dismissal from the Flying W and his own ascent to power.
He sprang forward with a low, savage exclamation, drawing one of his big weapons and jamming its muzzle deep into Masten's stomach. Then, holding it there, that the Easterner might not trick him, he ran his other hand over the frightened man's clothing, and found no weapon. Then he stepped back with a laugh, low, scornful, and bitter.
Then without warning he drove a fist at Masten's face. The Easterner dodged the blow, evaded him, and danced off, his face alight with a venomous joy.
We'll stand close where we are to make your chance better. When I count three you draw your gun. Show your man now, if there's any in you!" He dropped his hands from his chest and held the right, the fingers bent like the talons of a bird of prey, about to seize a victim. He waited, his eyes gleaming in the starlight, with cold alertness for Masten's expected move toward his gun.
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