Broderick, smiling, had said some light word to Thornton, laying his hand upon the cowboy's shoulder. For a moment, just the fraction of a second the two men stood side by side in the open doorway. Until they stood so, close together, a man would have said that they were of the same height. Now Winifred marked that there was a full two-inch difference and that Thornton was the taller.

Together they stepped out through the doorway. The door was low, Buck stooped his head a little, Broderick pa.s.sed out without stooping! It seemed only last night that she had made her supper in the Harte camp with Buck Thornton. She remembered so distinctly each little event. She could see him now as he had sat making his cigarette, could see him going to the door to look at the upclimbing moon. She had marked then the tall, wiry body that must stoop a little to stand in the low doorway. She had jested about his height; the six-feet-four of him, as he called it....

She could see again the man who had come in, masked, the man whose clothes were like the clothes of Buck Thornton even to the grey neck handkerchief. She could remember that this man had stood in the same doorway, that his eyes had gleamed at her through the slits in the handkerchief,... that he had held his head thrown back, that he had not stooped!

"It wasn't Buck Thornton!" she whispered to herself, her hands going white in their tense grip upon the parcel they held. "A man did lame his horse, a man who wanted me to think all the time that it was Buck Thornton. And that man," with swift certainty, "is Ben Broderick! Uncle Henry's friend. And Uncle ... knows!"

CHAPTER XX

POLLARD TALKS "BUSINESS"

The promise of the night flat and stale in his mouth, Thornton turned his back upon the merriment in the little schoolhouse and strode away to his horse awaiting him under the oak. He tightened the cinch with a savage jerk, coiled his tie rope and flung himself into the saddle. Did he not already have enough on his hands without running after a girl with grey eyes and a blazing temper? Had he not already enough to think about, what with guarding his range interests from a possible visit from the marauder who was driving wrath into the hearts of the cattle men and terror into the hearts of the isolated families, what with sc.r.a.ping every dollar here and there that he might be on time with his final payment to Henry Pollard? Must he further puzzle over the insolent whims of a captious girl?

Which was all very well, and yet as he turned Comet's head toward the Poison Hole ranch the blood was still hot on his brow, his thoughts were still busy with Winifred Waverly and the enigma she was to him, while his mind, still touched with the opiate of the loveliness of her, was filled with the picture she made in the moment of her flaming accusation.

"I have been calling her Miss Grey Eyes!" he mused angrily. "That name doesn't suit her. Little Blue Blazes would be better!"

"Mr. Thornton!"

It was Henry Pollard's voice, and for a moment Thornton had no thought of heeding it. But the voice called again, and he drew an impatient rein, waiting.

"Well," came his answer shortly. "What do _you_ want?"

"I want to talk business with you or I wouldn't stop you," Pollard returned coolly. He came close to Comet's head and in the same, cool, impersonal voice continued.

"When time comes for your last payment are you going to be able to make it?"

"Until time does come," Thornton snapped at him, "it's my business what I'm going to do."

"Certainly it's your business. But since you've put fifteen thousand into it already I guess you won't slip up on the last five thousand. Now it's nearly five months until that payment falls due, isn't it?"

"Well? Talk fast, Pollard."

"I want to make you a proposition. I need money, and I don't mind saying that I need it bad! I've got a chance for something good, something big, in a mining speculation, and I'm short of cash. If I could raise the money within thirty days..."

Thornton laughed.

"Nothing doing, Pollard," he cut in. "When your money's due you can come talk to me. Not before."

"I said I had a proposition, didn't I?" went on Pollard evenly. "I see where I can make by it, and I'm willing for you to profit at the same time."

"Spit it out. Where do I get off?"

"You owe me five thousand yet."

"Five thousand with interest, six per cent...."

"Forget the interest; I don't want it. And I'll carve five hundred dollars off the five thousand too, if you'll raise it within thirty days. That is my proposition. What do you say to it?"

For a little Buck Thornton was silent, thinking swiftly. For the life of him he could not but look for some trickery in any proposition which might come from "Rattlesnake" Pollard. And when Pollard coolly offered to give away eight hundred dollars, five hundred of it princ.i.p.al, three hundred interest, Thornton had an uneasy sense that there was something crooked in the deal. But at the same time he knew that a year ago Pollard had been short of funds and for this reason had been driven to sell the Poison Hole. Hence it might be that now Pollard was telling the truth when he said that he needed money.

"You mean," he said presently, speaking slowly, trying to see Pollard's face in the shadows, "that if I come across with four thousand five hundred dollars in thirty days you will give me the deed to the Poison Hole?"

"That's what I mean," agreed Pollard bluntly. "It's a proposition you can take or leave alone. Only you have got to take it right now if you want it. What do you say?"

"I've got out the habit of carrying forty-five hundred around in my vest pocket...."

"You've got an equity of fifteen thousand in a range that is worth a whole lot more than you are paying for it, young man! The bank in Dry Town would advance you the money and never bat an eye."

Again Thornton asked himself swiftly if there were some trap here Pollard was setting for him to blunder into. But he could see none, and he could understand that matters might stand so that the smaller sum _now_ would be worth more to him than the larger amount in five months.

"This is the fifteenth," replied the cowboy. "On the twenty-fifth I'll have the money ready at the Dry Town bank."

"I don't want it in the bank," Pollard told him shortly. "I want it in my fist! It's just about time for the stage to get held up again, and I'm taking no chances on this bet. You bring the money to _me_ or the bet's off."

"An' _I_ take the chances of gettin' held up!" grunted Thornton.

"You take all the chances there are. You stand to make eight hundred dollars, and you can take it or leave it! If you take it you can have the papers made out in town, deed and receipt and all, and I'll sign them. You can bring them to me at the Corners, or," with a little sneer creeping into his cool voice, "if you don't like the Corners, anywhere you say. And you can have half a dozen witnesses if you like."

"Why don't you ride with me into Dry Town?"

"Because I don't want to! Because, if you agree to put this thing over, I'm going to be mighty busy getting my deal in shape here and on the other side of the line."

"All right. I'll take the chance," Thornton said crisply, his voice as cool as Pollard's had been. "I'll raise the money and I'll get the papers made out. I'll bring them to you at Hill's Corners on the morning of the twenty-fifth."

He reined Comet about, turning again toward the range, and gave him his head. Pollard watched him a moment, then swinging about upon his heel, went back toward the school house. Chase Harper's voice from within rose above the fiddle and guitar, calling for the quadrille. Broderick came forward to meet Pollard.

"Well?" he asked quickly. "You made him your proposition?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?" Broderick's voice and eyes alike were eager.

"He swallowed it whole," laughed Pollard.

Broderick laughed with him, and then suddenly, the laughter going out of his voice, his hand shutting down tight upon Pollard's arm and drawing him away further from the door, deeper into the shadows, his words almost a whisper, he said:

"He danced with Winifred. You saw that?"

"Yes, d.a.m.n him. That's what he came for. But I don't think that they said anything...."

"Shut up, man! Don't you suppose I know what you mean? I don't know what they said. It's up to you to find out. He gave her something, a little parcel done up in paper. I don't know what. That's up to you, too. And, what's more," and his voice grew harsh with the menace in it, "it's up to you that they don't see each other again! I don't think that any harm was done tonight. He went away red-mad. When I stopped him at the door for a minute he hardly knew I was there. They didn't say a word to each other the last half of their dance. She said something to him, and her eyes were on fire when she said it, like his when he went out; that put an end to their talk. They didn't even say good night."

"I've got a notion to send her away," muttered Pollard sullenly. "It was a fool idea to drag a woman into this."