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By this time Betty has told you the rest and you know just what you can expect from the Taggarts. "That is the whole history of the Toltec idol. I am not proud of my part in the affair, but Tom Taggart must never have the idol. Remember that! I don't want him to have it! Neither do I want you to have it, or the money I leave, unless you can show that you forgive me.
"Do you know Telza?" "Telza?" "Toltec," he said; "a Toltec from Yucatan. He got it yesterday last night while you was gassin' to your friend, Neal Taggart." She started, recollection filling her eyes. "A Toltec!" she said in an awed voice. "I have heard that they are fanatics where their religion is concerned; your father told me that his that woman Ezela told him.
But Taggart " The frown on his face indicated that his intentions toward the latter were perfectly clear. Of the good resolutions that Calumet had made since the night before, when he had re-read his father's letter in the moonlight while standing beside the corral fence, none had survived. Black, vicious thoughts filled his mind as he drove toward Lazette.
Taggart was nowhere to be seen. "Sloped," added Calumet, with a laugh. "I don't reckon I'll want you," said Toban. "Clear case of self-defense. I reckon most everybody saw the play. Some raw." Several men had moved; one of them was peering at the faces of Denver and Garvey. He now looked up at the sheriff. "Nothing botherin' them any more," he said.
"I had three intimates among them a tall, clean-limbed fellow with the bluest and steadiest eyes I ever saw in a man, who called himself 'Nebraska'; a rangy Texan named Quint Taylor, who maintained that manual labor was a curse and quoted the Scriptures to prove it; and Tom Taggart. Tom and I were thick. I liked him, and he'd done things for me that seemed to prove that he thought a lot of me.
'Shall I help you out? said Taggart, turning round his chair, and looking at me. 'If you like, said I. 'To write something grand, said Taggart, taking snuff; 'to be stared at lifted on people's shoulders 'Well, said I, 'that is something like it. Taggart took snuff. 'Well, said he, 'why don't you write something grand? 'I have, said I. 'What? said Taggart.
And he went his way. It was with anxious forebodings I went to the office the next morning. Mr. Shanks was there before me. He was dictating to his secretary, Mr. Taggart, who had been witness of the collision of the night before, when I came in. Presently I was summoned to his desk, and went there with sinking heart.
They could easily do that, or thought they could, by making life at the ranch unbearable for him. That, he was convinced, was the reason that Betty had adopted her cold, severe, and contemptuous attitude toward him. She expected he would find her nagging and bossing intolerable, that he would leave in a rage and allow her and Taggart to come into possession of the property.
Some emotion flickered Calumet's eyelashes. "You've said somethin'," he returned; "nobody's runnin' me." He turned and walked to Dade, who had been watching him with wrath and astonishment. "Drinkin'?" suggested Taggart. "Have a drink, old man," he said, with celluloid good fellowship. Calumet turned with a grin. "Me an' my friend has got to the end of our capacity," he said.
My good friend is perhaps not aware that for some time past I have given up publishing was obliged to do so had many severe losses do nothing at present in that line, save sending out the Magazine once a month; and, between ourselves, am thinking of disposing of that wish to retire high time at my age so you see 'A losing trade, I assure you, sir; literature is a drug. Taggart, what o'clock is?
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