"Name?" asked Thornton bluntly.

"His name doesn't matter, I guess. He had three during the time that I knew him, and I suppose he's had half a dozen since."

"Before you go any further," interrupted Thornton, "tell me why you came to me at all?"

"Banker Templeton of Dry Town is a friend of mine. We went to school together. He's the man who led me to believe, to hope," he added softly, "that the man I want is working this country now. I told Templeton that I wanted to make a little visit to this neck of the woods. And he gave me your name."

"I see. Now, about your man?"

"I'm going to ask you a string of questions, Thornton. We haven't over much time and any way there wouldn't be any use now in my stopping to explain just what I'm driving at and why I want to know this and that.

If you'll just answer what I ask..."

"Fire away."

For a little they smoked on in silence, Two-Hand Billy Comstock's expression suggesting that he was planning precisely the course his inquiries were to take before beginning.

"Let's start in this way!" he said at last. "What men around here do you know real well, well enough to call friends?"

"I've been here only a year," Thornton told him. "I don't know many men here real well. Friends? Outside Bud King and the boys working for me I don't know any I'd call friend."

"Then," placidly suggested, "how about enemies? A man can make a good many enemies in a year and not half try."

"If you'll change that to men I know pretty well and don't like, and who don't like me, I can name a name or two."

"Let's have 'em."

"There's Henry Pollard, to begin with."

"The man you're buying from. First, how old a man is he and what does he look like? Next, what do you know about him?"

Thornton described the man, guessed at his age, and told what he knew of "Rattlesnake" Pollard. Comstock seemed interested in a mild sort of a way, but neither now nor later, as Thornton spoke of other men, did he give any sign of more than mild interest.

"Who are Pollard's friends?" was the next question.

Thornton named Ben Broderick, two other men who do not come into the story, and Cole Dalton, the sheriff. And as he named them, Comstock asked him to give an estimate at their ages, to tell what he knew of them and to give as close a personal description as he could.

Having finished with Pollard and his friends he spoke of the Bedloe boys. And United States Deputy Marshal Comstock listened throughout with the same mild interest, merely asking questions, offering no opinions.

"One last question," he said finally. "If you had a guess who'd you say was the bad man this county wants?"

"If any stock's missing from my range," was the blunt answer, "I'd look up the Bedloe outfit."

Comstock, offering no opinion, smiled and sank into a thoughtful silence.

At half past nine o'clock Thornton got to his feet and took up his hat.

"I'd better be riding," he said, putting out his hand. "Make yourself at home."

But Comstock came to the door with him.

"If you don't mind I'll ride along," he offered carelessly. "I think my trail runs into Dead Man's, too. And by the way, Thornton," he added a little sharply, "my name's just plain Richard Hampton for the present.

And my business right now is ... my business!"

Thornton nodded that he understood and together they left the cabin.

CHAPTER XXV

IN THE DARK

It was a pitch black night, the stars hidden by dense drifting clouds, and intensely still. Buck Thornton and Two-Hand Billy Comstock, riding side by side with few words, turned straight out across the fields, the marshal reining his horse close in to that other horse he could scarcely see and leaving to the cowboy the task of finding their way.

They rode slowly until they turned into the level county road and then swifter that they might come into Hill's Corners before it was midnight.

When at last the twinkling lights of Dead Man's Alley winked at them Comstock struck a match and looked at his watch.

"Fifteen minutes of twelve," he said. "You're on time. And I guess you can do the rest of your riding alone? So long. I'm apt to drop in on you at the ranch any day."

Comstock had planned to ride straight to the Brown Bear saloon, to invest in a stack of chips, and to spend the evening "seeing the town."

And Thornton, understanding that if the note from Winifred Waverly were truthful in all that it said and in all that it suggested, it would be as well if he were not seen tonight, turned out along the outskirts of the village to come to Pollard's house without riding through the main street.

"Easy, Comet, easy," he muttered to his horse, having no desire to come to the appointed place before the appointed hour. "We've got fifteen minutes and then won't have to keep the lady waiting. If she's there, Comet!"

For even yet his suspicions were not all at rest, already he rode with reins and quirt in the grip of his left hand, the right caught in the loose band of his chaps. It lacked but a few minutes of midnight when he entered the dark, silent street in which was Henry Pollard's house.

Here were a few straggling houses with many vacant lots between and no single light to show that any were awake, no gleam from a window to cut through the darkness which was absolute. Thornton drew his horse to the side of the road where the gra.s.s had not been worn away by the wheels of wagons and where the animal's footfalls were m.u.f.fled, hardly to be heard a score of paces away. Twice he stopped, frowning into the gloom about him, seeking to force his eyes to penetrate the impenetrable wall of the dark, straining his ears to catch some little sound through the silence.

But there was nothing to see save the black forms of houses and the pear trees in Pollard's yard, shapeless, sinister shadows something darker than the emptiness against which they stood; no sound save his horse's breathing, the faint creak of his own saddle leather, the low jingle of bridle and spur chain.

"Almost too still to be true," he told himself. "But," with a grim tightening of his lips, "too infernally dark for a man to pick me off with a shotgun if he wanted to!"

Fifty yards from Pollard's front gate he stopped his horse, swung down noiselessly from the saddle and tied Comet to a tree standing at the edge of the road; his jingling spurs he removed to hang them over the horn of his saddle. Then he went forward on foot, walking guardedly, his tread upon the gra.s.s making no sound to reach his own ears, and came to Pollard's gate.

It was so dark under the pear trees that the obscurity was without detail; he must guess rather than know where the tree trunks were; it was hard to judge if they were ten feet or fifty feet from him. There might be no one here to keep tryst with him, while on the other hand a dozen men might be waiting.

For perhaps two or three minutes he waited, standing motionless at the gate. No faint noise came to him, no hint of a shadow stirring among those other shadows as motionless as they were formless. The night seemed not to breathe, no sound even of rustling branches coming to his ears from the old pear trees.

"It's twelve o'clock, and after," he thought. "If she's coming she ought to be here now."

Still he waited. And then when he knew it must be ten or fifteen minutes after the time Winifred had set, and remembering that she said specifically "under the pear trees," he moved forward suddenly, jerked the gate open and stood in Pollard's yard.

The little noise of the gate whining upon its worn hinges sounded unnaturally loud. His footfall upon the warped board walk which led to the front door snapped through the silence like a pistol shot.

"If there's anybody laying for me here he knows now that I've come," he told himself. And with no hesitation now, yet with no lessening of his watchfulness, he came on swiftly until he stood under the pear trees and within ten feet of the front porch.

It was still about him, intensely still, and black-dark. He stood leaning forward a little, peering into the darkness, listening for a sound, any sound. He knew that it must be half past twelve, that for close upon half an hour he had waited here. Half an hour filled with quick, conflicting thoughts, suggesting a dozen explanations. Was the note really from Miss Waverly? Had she acted in good faith in sending it? What was the danger of which she spoke? Why had she not come, and why had she set an hour like this? Was it a mere hoax?