"What is it, honey," demanded the man, anxiously, as he felt her tremor against his arm, "air ye cold?"

Dorothy opened her eyes and laughed, but with a tremulousness in her mirth.

"I reckon I hain't plum rekivered from ther fright hit give me when ye went over thar ter Virginny," she answered, "sometimes I feels plum timorous."

"But ther peril's done past now," he rea.s.sured her, "an' all ther enemies we had, thet's wuth winnin' over, hev done come ter be friends."

"All thet's wuth winnin' over, yes," she admitted without conviction, "but hit's ther other kind thet a body hes most cause ter fear."

Into the man's thought flashed the picture of Bas Rowlett, and a grim stiffness came to his lips, but she could hardly know of that remaining danger, he reflected, and he asked seriously, "What enemies does ye mean, honey?"

She, too, had been thinking of Bas, and she, too, believed that fear to be her own exclusive secret, so she answered in a low voice:

"I was studyin' erbout ther riders. I reckon they've done tuck thought thet you an' Hump hev been seekin' evi_dence_ erginst 'em."

The man laughed.

"Don't disquiet yoreself erbout them fellers, honey. We _hev_ been seekin' evi_dence_--an' gittin' hit, too, in some measure. Ef ther riders air strong enough ter best us we hain't fit ter succeed."

The smile gave slowly way to a sterner and more militant expression, the look which his wife had come to know of late. It had brought a gravity to his eyes and a new dimension to his character, for it had not been there before he had dedicated himself to a cause and taken up the leadership which he had at first sought to refuse. Dorothy knew that he was thinking of the fight which lay ahead, before the scattered enmities of that community were resolved and the disrupted life welded and cemented into a solidarity of law.

CHAPTER x.x.x

Sim Squires was finding himself in a most intricate and perplexing maze of circ.u.mstance; the situation of the man who wears another man's collar and whose va.s.salage galls almost beyond endurance.

It was dawning on Squires that he was involved in a web of such criss-cross meshes that before long he might find no way out. He had been induced to waylay Parish Thornton at the demand of one whom he dared not incense on pain of exposures that would send him to the penitentiary.

His intended victim had not only failed to die but had grown to an influence in the neighbourhood that made him a most dangerous enemy; and to become, in fact, such an enemy to Sim he needed only to learn the truth as to who had fired that shot.

Squires had come as Rowlett's spy into that house, hating Thornton with a sincerity bred of fear, but now he had grown to hate Rowlett the more bitterly of the two. Indeed, save for that sword of Damocles which hung over him in the memory of his murderous employment and its possible consequences, he would have liked Parish, and Dorothy's kindness had awakened in the jackal's heart a bewildering sense of grat.i.tude such as he had never known before.

So while compulsion still bound him to Bas Rowlett, his own sympathies were beginning to lean toward the fortunes of that household from which he drew his legitimate wage.

But complications stood irrevocably between Sim and his inclinations.

His feeling against Bas Rowlett was becoming an obsession of venom fed by the overweening arrogance of the man, but Bas still held him in the hollow of his hand, and besides these reefs of menace were yet other shoals to be navigated.

Squires had been compelled by Rowlett not only to join the "riders" who were growing in numbers and covert power, but to take such an active part in their proceedings as would draw down upon his head the bolts of wrath should the organization ever be brought to an accounting.

There was terrible danger there and Sim recognized it. Sim knew that when Rowlett had quietly stirred into life the forces from which the secret body was born he had been building for one purpose--and one purpose only. To its own membership, the riders might be a body of vigilantes with divers intentions, but to Bas they were never anything but a mob which should some day lynch Parish Thornton--and then be themselves destroyed like the bee that dies when it stings. Through Squires as the unwilling instrument Rowlett was possessing himself of such evidence as would undo the leaders when the organization had served that one purpose.

Yet Sim dared reveal none of these secrets. The active personality who was the head and front of the riders was Sam Opd.y.k.e's friend Rick Joyce--and Rick Joyce was the man to whom Bas could whisper the facts that had first given him power over Sim.

For Sim had shot to death Rick's nephew, and though he had done it while drunk and half responsible; though he had been incited to the deed by Bas himself, no man save the two of them knew that, and so far the murderer had never been discovered.

It seemed to Sim that any way he turned his face he encountered a cul-de-sac of mortal danger--and it left him in a perplexity that fretted him and edged his nerves to rawness.

Part of Christmas day was spent by the henchman in the cabin where he had been accustomed to holding his secret councils with his master, Bas Rowlett, and his venom for the man who had used him as a shameless p.a.w.n was eclipsing his hatred for Parish Thornton, the intended victim whom he was paid to shadow and spy upon. For Dorothy he had come to acknowledge a dumb worship, and this sentiment was not the adoration of a lover but that dog-like affection which reacts to kindness where there has been no other kindness in life.

It was not in keeping with such a character that he should attempt any candid repudiation of his long-worn yoke, or declare any spirit of conversion, but in him was a ferment of panic.

"I'm growin' right restive, Bas," whined Sim as the two shivered and drank whiskey to keep themselves warm in that abandoned shack where they were never so incautious as to light a fire. "Any time this feller Parish finds out I shot him, he'll turn on me an' kill me. Thar hain't but jest one safe way out. Let me finish up ther job an' rest easy."

Bas Rowlett shook his head decisively.

"When I gits ready ter hev ye do thet," he ruled, imperiously, "I'll let ye know. Right now hit's ther last thing I'd countenance."

"I kain't no fashion make ye out," complained Sim. "Ye hired me ter do ther job an' blackguarded me fer failin'. Now ye acks like ye war paid ter pertect ther feller from peril."

Rowlett scowled. It was not his policy to confide in his Myrmidons, yet with an adherent who knew as much as Squires it was well to have the confidential seeming.

"Things hev changed, Sim," he explained. "Any heedless killin's right now would bring on a heap of trouble afore I'm ready fer hit--but ye hain't no more fretful ter hev him die then what I be--an' thet's what we're buildin' up this hyar night-rider outfit ter do."

"Thet's another thing thet disquiets me, though," objected Squires. "I'm es deep inter thet es anybody else, an' them fellers, Thornton and Old Hump, hain't nuver goin' ter rest twell they penitensheries some of ther head men."

Bas Rowlett laughed, then with such a confidential manner as he rarely bestowed upon a subordinate, he laid a hand on his hireling's arm.

"Thet's all right, Sim. Ther penitenshery's a right fit an' becomin'

place fer them men, when ye comes ter study hit out. We hain't objectin'

ter thet ourselves--in due time."

Sim Squires drew back and his face became for the moment terror-stricken. "What does ye mean?" he demanded, tensely, "does ye aim ter let me sulter out my days in convict-stripes because I've done s'arved yore eends?"

But Bas Rowlett shook his head.

"Not you, Sim," he gave a.s.surance. "I'm goin' ter tek keer of _you_ all right--but when ther rest of 'em hev done what we wants, we hain't got no further use fer them riders. Atter thet they'll jest be a pest an'

burden ter us ef they goes on terrifyin' everybody."

"I don't no fashion comprehend ye, but I've got ter know whar I stands at." There was a momentary stiffening of the creature's moral backbone and the employer hastened to smooth away his anxiety.

"I hain't nuver drapped no hint of this ter no man afore," he confided, "but me an' you air actin' tergither es pardners, an' ye've got a license ter know. These hyar riders air ergoin' ter handle ther men that stands in my light--then I'm goin' ter everlastin'ly bust up ther riders. I wouldn't love ter see 'em git too strong. Ye fights a forest fire by buildin' back-fires, Sim, but ef ye lets ther back-fires burn too long ye're es bad off es ye war when ye started out."

"How does ye aim ter take keer of me?" inquired the listener and Bas replied promptly: "When ther time comes ter bust 'em up, we'll hev strength enough ter handle ther matter. Leave thet ter me. You'll be state's evi_dence_ then an' we'll prove thet ye ji'ned up ter keep watch fer me."

Over Sim Squires' face spread the vapid grin that he used to conceal his emotions.

"But thet all comes later on," enjoined Bas. "Meanwhile, keep preachin'

ter them fellers thet Thornton's buildin' up a case erginst 'em. Keep 'em skeered an' wrought up."

"I reckon we'd better not start away tergither," suggested Sim when they had brought their business to its conclusion, "you go on, Bas, an' I'll foller d'reckly."

When he stood alone in the house Sim spent a half-hour seeking to study the ramifications of the whole web of intrigue from various angles of consideration, but before he left the place he acted on a sudden thought and, groping in the recess between plate-girder and overhang, he drew out the dust-coated diary that Bas had thrust there and forgotten, long ago. This Sim put into his pocket and took with him.

The winter dragged out its course and broke that year like a glacier suddenly loosened from its moorings of ice. A warm breath came out of the south and icicled gorges sounded to the sodden drip of melting waters. Snowslides moved on hundreds of steeply pitched slopes, and fed sudden rivulets into freshet roarings.