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And then, partially voicing the thought with which he had grappled upon the corral gate, he added meditatively: "There's something almighty peculiar about an outfit that will listen to a man offer fifty bucks on a string like that." His eyes, cool and steady, met Trevors's in a long look which was little short of a challenge. "Just how far does that go, Lee?" asked the manager curtly.
Now " and with blazing eyes she confronted Trevors "if you've got any more nice little things to say, suppose you say them to me!" Trevors's temper had had ample provocation and now stood naked and hot in his hard eyes. In a blind instant he laid his tongue to a word which would have sent Bud Lee at his throat.
"Johnny Hodge, then," she commanded. "Or Tod Bruce or Bing Kelley. They all know me." "Fired long ago, all of them," laughed Trevors, "to make room for competent men." "To make room for more crooks!" she cried, her own brown hands balled into fists scarcely less hard than Trevors's had been. Then for the third time she turned upon Lee. "You are one of his new thieves, I suppose?"
The two men met again, clung to each other in a ludicrous embrace, broke asunder, and Lee struck so that his fist, landing fair upon Trevors's chin, hurled the bigger man back, stumbling, falling But not fallen. For his back found the wall and saved him. As Lee came on, rushing at him like a man gone mad, Trevors slipped aside and struck back, for the critical moment gaining time to breathe.
And at last, to the eager gaze of the men in the bunk-house, there appeared the two wounds, one upon the outer right shoulder, the other upon the left forearm. It was Lee who, pushing the clumsy cook aside, silently made the two bandages from strips of Trevors's shirt. It was Lee who brought a flask of brandy from which Trevors drank deep. And then came Judith.
The men turned from her to Ward Hannon, the field foreman, who had been Trevors's right-hand man and who now was sneering openly. "I'm saying it's no work for a kid of a girl," grumbled Hannon. "You run an outfit like this?" He laughed derisively. "It can't be did." "It can't, can't it?" cried Judith. "Tell me why, old smarty. Spit it out lively."
Carson did not look up from the bobbing ears of his horse as he continued: "If it works out the other way an' it's just fists, it don't hurt to remember how Trevors put out Scotty Webb last year in Rocky Bend. Four-footed style, striking with his boot square in Scotty's belly." Trevors's name was not again referred to even in the vaguest terms.
And soon or late Western Lumber would pay the price for the timber tract, soon, if they saw that they had to pay it or lose the forests which they had so long counted upon. Lumber values were mounting every day. Neither man, when it chanced that Bayne Trevors's name was casually mentioned, suggested: "Why not go to the law?"
"It was just a brush fire," said Judith. "Thank Heaven, things are pretty green yet. Carson says it might have been lighted by Benny, who, it seems, is one of Trevors's hirelings and not above this sort of thing; or it might have been accidentally started by some careless hunter.
But Judith stood between them and, like an echo to the word, came the resounding slap as Judith's open palm smote Trevors's cheek. "You wildcat!" he cried. And his two big hands flew out, seeking her shoulders. "Stand back!" called Judith. "Just because you are bigger than I am, don't make any mistake! Stand back, I tell you!"
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