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The girl jerked Molly's head around and they dropped back behind the wagon which kept on lumberingly, with Mack still asleep on the seat. From the south from the direction of the distant river a rider came galloping up the trail. "Why!" murmured Frances. "It's Ratty M'Gill!" The ex-cowboy of the Bar-T swung around upon the trail, as though headed east, and grinned at the ranchman's daughter.
In the instant between hearing the words and obeying, a singular change took place in the Falling Wall ranchman's eyes. Looking over at Tenison his eyes had been keen and clear. Slowly and with a faint smile he turned his head. When his eyes met those of Tom Stone, who confronted him pressing the muzzle of a cocked Colt's forty-five gun against his stomach, they were soft and glazed.
And then a little cog in the machine slipped. A ranchman who lived out on the north road happened to be in Eagle Pass one evening as Harboro was passing through the town on his way home from work. The ranchman's remark was entirely innocent, but rather unfortunate. "A very excellent horsewoman, Mrs. Harboro," he remarked, among other things. Harboro did not understand.
He was smiling. Goliday's ivory-handled gun was in his pistol holster. His hand moved a few inches toward it. Then it stopped. Goliday hesitated. Face to face with the show-down, he was afraid. "Well," the ranchman's words came slowly, "what do yuh want with me?" "I want yo'," said The Kid in a voice ringing like a sledge on solid steel, "fo' the murdah of the ownah of the S Bar!"
As he listened to the story, the ranchman's face grew terrible to behold. And as it was finished, he sat in silence a moment, then fairly hissed: "My law is not 'an eye for an eye' or 'a tooth for a tooth. But four eyes for an eye!" For an instant only was Bob mystified by this speech.
He could only count upon the watchfulness and skill of Barker to protect them. Failing that, there was but one hope, that the rider who had gone on ahead might not be Moran after all. But presently all doubt of the man's identity was removed from the ranchman's mind, for on the soggy turf ahead his quick eyes caught the glitter of something bright.
Realizing this and feeling his desire growing stronger, at the end of the sixth month to learn the truth about his father when Ford paid him, Bob asked if he could ride over to Red Top for a day. In reply to the ranchman's question as to the reason, he said he wanted to find out about a man.
The ranchman was equipped only with the splendid strength and equilibrium of perfect health and the endurance conferred by decent living. The two attributes nearly matched. There were no formal rounds. At last the fibre of the clean liver prevailed. The last time Curly went down from one of the ranchman's awkward but powerful blows he remained on the grass, but looking up with an unquenched eye.
Red Snake called a ringing summons, and from the rear circle of the audience shuffled forward the strangest man Pauline had ever seen. His undersized, stooping form was garbed in a miner's cast-off red shirt, a ranchman's ex-trousers, a pair of tattered moccasins and a much-dented derby hat, with a lone feather in the band of it. It was White Man's Hat, a half-breed interpreter.
If he doesn't sit silent like a yellow graven image, he scatters 'l's' all about the room until I want to get out of bed and sweep 'em up," declared Pratt. The ranchman's daughter smiled at him, but shook her head. "Now! no more talking. I'll sit here and promise not to scatter any of the alphabet broadcast; but you must keep still." "That's mighty hard," muttered the patient.
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