The Collected Western Classics & Adventures Novels. William MacLeod RaineЧитать онлайн книгу.
behind him, and Arlie came into the room. She glanced quickly from one to the other, and there was apprehension in her look.
“I’ve come to see Lieutenant Fraser on business,” Briscoe explained, with an air patently triumphant.
Arlie made no offer to leave the room. “He’s hardly up to business yet, is he?” she asked, as carelessly as she could.
“Then we’ll give it another name. I’m making a neighborly call to ask how he is, and to return some things he lost.”
Jed’s hand went into his pocket and drew forth leisurely a photograph. This he handed to Arlie right side up, smiling the while, with a kind of masked deviltry.
“Found it in Alec Howard’s cabin. Seems your coat was hanging over the back of a chair, lieutenant, and this and a paper fell out. One of the boys must have kicked it to one side, and it was overlooked. Later, I ran across it. So I’m bringing it back to you.”
In spite of herself Arlie’s eyes fell to the photograph. It was a snapshot of the ranger and a very attractive young woman. They were smiling into each other’s eyes with a manner of perfect and friendly understanding. To see it gave Arlie a pang. Flushing at her mistake, she turned the card over and handed it to the owner.
“Sorry. I looked without thinking,” she said in a low voice.
Fraser nodded his acceptance of her apology, but his words and his eyes were for his enemy. “You mentioned something else you had found, seems to me.”
Behind drooping eyelids Jed was malevolently feline. “Seems to me I did.”
From his pocket came slowly a folded paper. He opened and looked it over at leisure before his mocking eyes lifted again to the wounded man. “This belongs to you, too, but I know you’ll excuse me if I keep it to show to the boys before returning it.”
“So you’ve read it,” Arlie broke in scornfully.
He grinned at her, and nodded. “Yes, I’ve read it, my dear. I had to read it, to find out whose it was. Taken by and large, it’s a right interesting document, too.”
He smiled at the ranger maliciously, yet with a certain catlike pleasure in tormenting his victim. Arlie began to feel a tightening of her throat, a sinking of the heart. But Fraser looked at the man with a quiet, scornful steadfastness. He knew what was coming, and had decided upon his course.
“Seems to be a kind of map, lieutenant. Here’s Gimlet Butte and the Half Way House and Sweetwater Dam and the blasted pine. Looks like it might be a map from the Butte to this part of the country. Eh, Mr. Fraser from Texas?”
“And if it is?”
“Then I should have to ask you how you come by it, seeing as the map is drawn on Sheriff Brandt’s official stationery,” Jed rasped swiftly.
“I got it from Sheriff Brandt, Mr. Briscoe, since you want to know. You’re not entitled to the information, but I’ll make you a gift of it. He gave it to me to guide me here.”
Even Briscoe was taken aback. He had expected evasion, denial, anything but a bold acceptance of his challenge. His foe watched the wariness settle upon him by the narrowing of his eyes.
“So the sheriff knew you were coming?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you broke jail. That was the story I had dished up to me.”
“I did, with the help of the sheriff.”
“Oh, with the help of the sheriff? Come to think of it, that sounds right funny—a sheriff helping his prisoner to escape.”
“Yet it is true, as it happens.”
“I don’t doubt it, lieutenant. Fact is, I had some such notion all the time. Now, I wonder why-for he took so friendly an interest in you.”
“I had a letter of introduction to him from a friend in Texas. When he knew who I was, he decided he couldn’t afford to have me lynched without trying to save me.”
“I see. And the map?”
“This was the only part of the country in which I would be safe from capture. He knew I had a claim on some of the Cedar Mountain people, because it was to help them I had got into trouble.”
“Yes, I can see that.” Arlie nodded quickly. “Of course, that is just what the sheriff would think.”
“Folks can always see what they want to, Arlie,” Jed commented. “Now, I can’t see all that, by a lot.”
“It isn’t necessary you should, Mr. Briscoe,” Fraser retorted.
“Or else I see a good deal more, lieutenant,” Jed returned, with his smooth smile. “Mebbe the sheriff helped you on your way because you’re such a good detective. He’s got ambitions, Brandt has. So has Hilliard, the prosecuting attorney. Happen to see him, by the way?”
“Yes.”
Jed nodded. “I figured you had. Yes, it would be Hilliard worked the scheme out, I expect.”
“You’re a good deal of a detective yourself, Mr. Briscoe,” the Texan laughed hardily. “Perhaps I could get you a job in the rangers.”
“There may be a vacancy there soon,” Jed agreed.
“What’s the use of talking that way, Jed? Are you threatening Mr. Fraser? If anything happens to him, I’ll remember this,” Arlie told him.
“Have I mentioned any threats, Arlie? It is well known that Lieutenant Fraser has enemies here. It don’t take a prophet to tell that, after what happened the other night.”
“Any more than it takes a prophet to tell that you are one of them.”
“I play my own hand. I don’t lie down before him, or any other man. He’d better not get in my way, unless he’s sure he’s a better man than I am.”
“But he isn’t in your way,” Arlie insisted. “He has told a plain story. I believe every word of it.”
“I notice he didn’t tell any of his plain story until we proved it on him. He comes through with his story after he’s caught with the goods. Don’t you know that every criminal that is caught has a smooth explanation?”
“I haven’t any doubt Mr. Briscoe will have one when his turn comes,” the ranger remarked.
Jed wheeled on him. His eyes glittered menace. “You’ve said one word too much. I’ll give you forty-eight hours to get out of this valley.”
“How dare you, Jed—and in my house!” Arlie cried. “I won’t have it. I won’t have blood shed between you.”
“It’s up to him,” answered the cattleman, his jaw set like a vise. “Persuade him to git out, and there’ll be no blood shed.”
“You have no right to ask it of him. You ought not——” She stopped, aware of the futility of urging a moral consideration upon the man, and fell back upon the practical. “He couldn’t travel that soon, even if he wanted to. He’s not strong enough. You know that.”
“All right. We’ll call it a week. If he’s still here a week from to-day, there will be trouble.”
With that, he turned on his heel and left the room. They heard his spurs trailing across the porch and jingling down the steps, after which they caught a momentary vision of him, dark and sinister, as his horse flashed past the window.
The ranger smiled, but rather seriously. “The fat’s in the fire now, sure enough, ma’am.”
She turned anxiously upon him. “Why did you tell him all that? Why did you let him go away, believing you were here as a spy to trap him and his friends?”
“I let him have the truth. Anyhow, I couldn’t have made good with a denial. He had the evidence. I can’t