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"He's gone to Spruce Crossing to Sikkem?" she cried, her eyes hot as they dwelt on the shaking woman before her. "Don't wait talking. It don't matter the right of things. You, Daddy, get our horses fixed and round up a bunch of boys from the bunkroom. Jeff's in danger, an' it's up to us. Maybe Evie'll tell me while you go."
The power of that leveled gun indisputable. The buckle was loosened, and the weapons fell on the blankets behind the ranchman. "Now push your hands up! Right up!" The command was obeyed on the instant, but the look which accompanied the movement was as deadly as human passion could make it. "Back away! Back to the far end! Sharp!" Sikkem moved. But his movement was not rapid enough.
Say, what boys you got out there?" she inquired as the man slipped out of the saddle and began to unfasten the cinchas. "Why, just the same four damn fools, an' Sikkem." "And they're following up the trail?" "Sure." The man flung off the saddle and his horse mouched away. "Psha!" he cried, turning his fierce eyes upon Nan. "What's the use anyway?" His gesture was one of helpless disgust.
Then he flung himself down and crawled to his retreat behind the palliasse, convinced that the cry was in the voice of Sikkem Bruce. His sufferings were well-nigh unendurable. His very breathing caused him an exquisite pain. He even found himself wondering how much longer he could endure. But his work was not yet finished. If he must die he would die fighting.
Her greater fears had been of the man, Sikkem, who had been in her waking thoughts. "You were following my tracks?" she demanded uncertainly. Nan's eyes grew grave. "I certainly was. Though I didn't guess they were yours. Say, you must have crossed the tracks I was following," she added thoughtfully. "Did you see anybody? Four fellers? Mighty tough-looking citizens, an' strangers?"
And as he did so a harsh voice from the other end of the bar held him up. "What about me, Ju?" The tough-looking prairie man made his demand with a laugh only a shade less harsh than his speaking voice. Ju stood. His desperate, keen face was coldly still as he regarded the powerful frame of his challenger. Then his retort came swift and poignant. "You, Sikkem? You'd allus give yourself away.
That's how I figure." There was a deep note of urgency in the woman's voice. Her eyes were alight with a sudden, unmistakable emotion. But even if the man realized these things he ignored them. "My life?" There was something cruelly biting in the reflection. "And all this time you knew Sikkem. You knew we were being raided." "I " Elvine broke off. She had no reply. There could be no reply.
"This Sikkem. I don't like him. But " Nan dismissed the matter in her own way. "Sikkem's been on the ranch nigh three years. He's a cattleman first, and hates rustlers worse than poison. But he's tough. Oh, he's tough, all right. I wouldn't gamble a pea-shuck he hasn't quite a dandy bunch of notches on his gun. But we're used to his sort."
Action rather than words was the prevailing feature with these people, and, in his way, Ju Penrose was equal, if not superior, not only in debate, but in the very method these people best understood. A moment later Sikkem took his departure. It was well past midnight when the last man turned out of Ju's bar. But the crowd had not yet scattered to their various homes.
I don't like him, Miss, an' Say, how did them rustlers know 'bout them calves? Ther's two hundred head o' beeves out there, an' they passed 'em right over fer the Shorthorns." The man's argument and distrust of the man Sikkem made a deep impression on Nan. She had listened to some of the latter before. But Jeff's predilection for the dark-faced half Greaser had left her sceptical of Lal's opinion.
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