The Boss of the Lazy Y, Charles Alden Seltzer [top 10 best books of all time .txt] 📗

still, his muscles contracting, his lips curling, a black, jealous anger in his heart. Taggart was there again.

But he would not escape this time. He would take care to make no noise which would scare him away. He listened at the door, but he heard no voices. They were in there, though, he could distinguish slight movements. He left the door and stole softly up the stairs to his room, getting his boots and carrying them in his hand. As before, he intended putting them on at the kitchen door. But Bob's dog would not betray him this time, for since the other accident he had contrived to persuade Bob to keep the dog outside at night. Nor would there occur any other accident—he would take care of that. And so it took him a long time to descend the stairs and make his way to the kitchen door. Once outside, he drew on his boots and stole silently and swiftly to the front door of the house.

To his astonishment, when he arrived at the door, there was no light, no sound to indicate that anybody was in the room. He tried the door—it was barred. He stepped to the window. If there was a light within it would show through the cracks and holes in the shade, for the latter was old and well worn.

But no light appeared. If there was anyone inside they must have heard him in spite of his carefulness, and had put out the light. He cursed. He could not watch both the back and the front door, but he could watch the outside of the house, could go a little distance away from it and thus see anybody who would leave it.

He walked away toward the timber clump, looking around him. As his gaze swept the wood near the river he caught a glimpse of a horse and rider as they passed through a clearing and went slowly away from him.

They had tricked him again! Probably by this time Betty was in her room, laughing at him. Taggart was laughing, too, no doubt. The thought maddened him. He cursed bitterly as he ran to the stable. He was inside in a flash, saddling Blackleg, jamming a bit into his mouth. He would follow Taggart to the Arrow, to hell—anywhere, but he would catch him. Blackleg could do it; he would make him do it, if he killed him in the end.

In three minutes Blackleg shot out of the stable door—a flash in the night. The swift turn that was required of him he made on his hind legs, and then, with a plunge and a snort of delight, he was away over the level toward the wood.

Calumet guided Blackleg toward the spot where he had seen the rider, certain that he could not have gone far during the interval that had elapsed, but when he reached the spot there was no sign of a horse and rider in any direction.

For an instant only Calumet halted Blackleg, and then he spurred him down the river trail. One mile, two, three, he rode at a breakneck pace, and then suddenly he was out of the timber and facing a plain that stretched into an interminable distance. The trail lay straight and clear; there was no sign of a horse and rider on it. Taggart had not come in this direction, though in this direction lay the Arrow.

He wheeled Blackleg and, with glowering eyes and straightened lips, rode him back the way he had come, halting often and peering into shadows. By the time he arrived at the spot where he had first seen the horse and rider he had become convinced that Taggart had secreted himself until he had passed him and had then ridden over the back trail, later to return to the Arrow by a circuitous route.

Calumet determined to cut across the country and intercept him, and he drove the spurs into Blackleg and raced him through the wood. His trail took him into a section which led to the slope which the horses drawing the wagon had taken on the night of the ambush. He was tearing through this when he broke through the edge of a clearing about a quarter of a mile from the ranchhouse. At about the center of the clearing Blackleg came to a jarring, dizzying stop, rearing high on his hind legs. When he came down he whinnied and backed, and, peering over his shoulder to see what had frightened him, Calumet saw the body of a man lying at the edge of a mesquite clump.

With his six-shooter in hand, Calumet dismounted and walked to the man. The latter was prone in the dust, on his face, and as Calumet leaned over him the better to peer into his face—for he thought the man might be Taggart—he heard a groan escape his lips. Sheathing his weapon, Calumet turned the man over on his back. Another groan escaped him; his eyes opened, though they closed again immediately. It was not Taggart.

"Got me," he said. He groaned again.

"Who got you?" Calumet bent over to catch the reply. None came; the man had lost consciousness.

Calumet stood up and looked around. He could see nothing of the rider for whom he was searching. He could not leave this wounded man to pursue his search for Taggart; there might be something he could do for the man.

But he left the man's side for an instant while he looked around him. Some dense undergrowth rose on his right, black shadows surrounding it, and he walked along its edge, his forty-five in hand, trying to peer into it. He saw nothing, heard nothing. Then, catching another groan from the man, he returned to him. The man's eyes were open; they gleamed brightly and wildly.

"Got me," he said as he saw Calumet.

"Who got you?" repeated Calumet.

"Telza."

"Telza?" Calumet bent over him again; the name sounded foreign. "Talk sense," he said shortly; "who's Telza?"

"A Toltec Indian," said the man. "He's been hangin' around here—for a month. Around the Arrow, too. Mebbe two months. Nobody knows. He's like a shadow. Now you see him an' now you don't," he added with a grim attempt at a joke. "Taggart's had me trailin' him, lookin' for a diagram he's got."

"Diagram of what?" demanded Calumet. His interest was intense. A Toltec! Telza was of the race from whom his father and Taggart had stolen the idol. He leaned closer to the man.

"Are Telza an' Taggart friends?" he asked.

"Friends!" The man's weak laugh was full of scorn. "Taggart's stringin' him. Telza's lookin' for an idol—all gold an' diamonds, an' such. Worth thousands. Taggart set Telza on Betty Clayton." The man choked; his breath came thickly; red stained his lips. "Hell!" he said, "what you chinnin' me for? Get that damned toad-sticker out of me, can't you. It's in my side, near the back—I can't reach it."

Calumet felt where the man indicated, and his hand struck the handle of a knife. It had a large, queerly-shaped handle and a long, thin blade like a stiletto. It had been driven into the man's left side just under the fleshy part of the shoulder, and it was plain that its point had found a vital spot—probably through the lung and near the heart, for the man was limp and helpless, his breath coughed in his throat, and it was certain that he had not many minutes to live. Calumet carefully withdrew the weapon, and the man settled back with a sigh of relief.

"You're Marston, ain't you?" he said, slowly and painfully, gasping with every breath. "I've heard the Taggart's talk about you. Old Tom's developed a yellow streak in his old age an' he's leavin' all his dirty work to Neal. Neal's got a yellow streak, too, for that matter, but he's young an' ain't got no sense. I reckon I'm goin' somewhere now, an' so I can say what I like. Taggart ain't no friend of mine—neither of them. They've played me dirt—more than once. My name's Al Sharp. You know that Tom Taggart was as deep in that idol business as your dad was. He told me. But he's got Telza soft-soaped into thinkin' that Betty Clayton's folks snaked it from Telza's people. Taggart's got evidence that your dad planted the idol around here somewheres—seems to know that your dad drawed a diagram of the place an' left it with Betty. He set Telza to huntin' for it. Telza got it tonight—it was hid somewhere. I was with him—waitin' for him. If he got the diagram I was to knife him and take it away from him. Taggart an' his dad is somewhere around here—I was to meet them down the river a piece. Telza double-crossed me; tried to sneak over here an' hunt the idol himself. I found him—he had the diagram. I tried to get it from him—he stuck his toad-sticker in me, … the little copper-skinned devil. He—" He hesitated and choked, raising himself as though to get a long breath. But a dark flood again stained his lips, he strangled and stretched out limply.

Calumet turned him over on his back and covered his face with a handkerchief. Then he stood up, looking around at the edge of the clearing. Ten feet in front of him, curled around the edge of a bit of sagebrush, was a dirty white object. He walked over, kicked the sagebrush violently, that a concealed rattler might not spring on him, and took up the object. It was a piece of paper about six inches square, and in the dim moonlight Calumet could see that it contained writing of some sort and a crude sketch. He looked closer at it, saw a spot marked "Idol is here," and then folded it quickly and placed it, crumpled into a ball, into a pocket of his trousers.

He was now certain that Taggart had been merely deceiving Betty; there had been no other significance to his visits. The visits were merely part of a plan to get possession of the idol. While he had been talking to Betty in the office tonight Telza had stolen the diagram.

There was more than triumph in Calumet's eyes as he turned his pony—there was joy and savage exultation. The idol was his; he would get the money, too. After that he would drive Betty and all of them—

But would he? A curious indecision mingled with his other emotions at this thought. His face grew serious. Lately he was developing a vacillating will; whenever he meditated any action with regard to Betty he had an inclination to defer it. He postponed a decision now; he would think it over again. Before he made up his mind on that question he wanted to enjoy her discomfiture and confusion over the loss of the diagram.

He had lost all thought of pursuing Taggart. Sharp had said that Taggart was somewhere in the vicinity, but it was just possible that Sharp had been so deeply engaged with Telza about the time Taggart had made his escape that he had not seen him. There was time for him to settle with Taggart.

He took up the bridle rein, wheeled, placed one foot into the stirrup, intending to mount, when he became aware of a shadow looming near him. He pulled the foot out of the stirrup, dropped the reins with the same movement, and turned in a flash.

Neal Taggart, sitting on a horse at the edge of the clearing, not over twenty feet from him, was looking at him from behind the muzzle of a six-shooter. At a trifling distance from Taggart was another man, also bestride a horse. A rifle was at this man's shoulder; his cheek was nuzzling its stock, and Calumet saw that the weapon was aimed at his chest.

He rapidly noted the positions of the two, estimated the distance, decided that the risk of resistance was too great, and slowly raised his hands above his head.

"Surprise party,