“Oh, they were talking to Bob last night. Mr. Tripp, you know. He’s foreman of the lumberjacks for Jud. That clerk at the hotel told me who they were.”
The cook came in with the coffee, prepared to be surly about it. Then he saw Colleen and swallowed a little. Carefully, he dried an already dry table before her, and then put down the coffee with a little flourish.
Tripp talking to Harvey and Kilburn? Hiring them? No, he told himself, it was too soon for that. Devitt did not yet know what sort of a fight he was facing. Yet the fact was one to be remembered. Both men were strictly cash-on-the-line warriors. Tough and dangerous, but fighters for money—and worth all they were paid.
He glanced up from his coffee at the girl across the table. It was not only the first time any woman had ever sat on this veranda, but the first time in many months that one had sat across the table from him. Somehow she fitted into the background, she belonged here. She was looking across the valley now, her features relaxed, an expression of quiet peace in her eyes and around her mouth.
She looked around, suddenly aware of his attention. For the first time they looked directly at each other, and everything inside him seemed to come suddenly to rest. A slight flush mounted in her cheeks.
“You belong here.” He said it suddenly. “This should be your home.”
She studied him curiously, then looked around the ranch yard, at the sunlit, hard-packed earth, the soft shadows along the walls, the coolness of the place after the heat of the valley. Yet even the valley, with its pastel greens and browns, contributed to the peace of the place. She liked the distance, liked the emptiness. She had never been a girl who depended upon others for pleasure, excitement, or entertainment.
His words echoed in her mind, and she felt a little shiver of something almost like fear, yet there was such a ring of sincerity and truth in his voice that it caught every bit of her attention and almost forced her acceptance.
Was this her country? Did she belong here, under the shoulder of Emigrant Gap? There was a faint perfume from the sage that mixed with the aroma of the coffee, the smell of old leather, the clean, bright warmth of the sun.
No sooner had the thought come to mind than she rebelled. What could she be thinking of? She was to marry Jud Devitt!
“You’re mistaken,” she told him seriously. “I’m a city girl. This is just an interlude for me, a sort of vacation.”
His eyes were slightly mocking. “Is it?”
“Jud Devitt is a man a girl could be proud of,” she said. “He does things, big things. Men respect him for his ability.”
“These big things—aren’t they all done for Jud Devitt? And you want to remember that you’ve only see him win. You never know a man until you see him lose.”
She looked at him again and something in his eyes made her heart falter. “And you? Have you ever lost?”
“More than once.”
He glanced out from under the edge of the veranda roof. A thin trail of smoke lay against the sky. As he looked there was a puff.
“Jud Devitt’s coming now.” Bell got to his feet. “I wish he would bring all his men at once. The sooner they know what they are facing, the better.”
He held the door for her and they walked outside. The cook rattled pans in the kitchen but there was no one else about.
“Are you so anxious for trouble?”
“No . . . but if it has to come, why wait?”
“His men like to fight. They are used to winning, too.” He could see them coming, four men riding toward the Gap. He glanced toward Piety Mountain and saw two more puffs of smoke.
Coolly, he considered his position. It was unlikely that Devitt would try to force a way through at this time. He would try to bully his way through, then resort to trickery or some legal or semi-legal means. But a man with a rifle could hold his place for a long time.
He walked to his saddle and took the rifle from the scabbard.
“You’re not going to use that?”
“Not unless I’m forced to.” There was a whimsical light in his eye. “Not unless your man tries to come through.”
He stood waiting, watching the riders. Jud Devitt was in the lead, and the man rode well. A little behind on his right was Bob Tripp, and the two other men followed close behind. Clay waited. Sweat trickled down his cheek and he drew deep on his cigarette, then dropped it to the earth.
They were coming on, and he was ready. He stepped outside the gate and stood waiting, a tall, lonely figure, the stone walls of the buildings rising to right and left.
Chapter 5
Devtit had not failed, as he approached, to note the way in which the ranch buildings commanded the passage through the Gap. This was something he should have been told. Why had Wheeler failed to tell him?
The slits in the rock walls were ports for shooting, and he could see at a glance that if it came to that sort of fighting, two men could hold the Gap against fifty. His jaw muscles tensed as he saw the figure of Clay Bell standing carelessly outside the gate, waiting.
Then he saw Colleen Riley, and he swore under his breath. What possessed the girl to come out here at a time like this?
Devitt drew up some twenty yards from Bell. “We’re scouting a route into the Deep Creek timber,” he said. “Can we get our sawmill through here?”
“This way is closed.”
“So?” Devitt placed his hands on the pommel. “You undertake to block a public road? A stage route?”
Clay Bell took his time, rolling a fresh smoke before he spoke. He wanted to take time enough for more of his riders to appear. Also, he could see that Devitt was impatient.
“The stage stopped using this route fifteen years ago, and the road goes through Tinkersville now. Nobody has been allowed through here since I took over, without express permission.”
Devitt was coldly angry. It irritated him that Colleen must be standing there to see him frustrated. “You take a lot on yourself, Bell. You’re just a squatter here. You ranchers try to control the entire range without the slightest legal right.”
Clay smiled and put the cigarette between his lips. Deliberately, he stalled. “You’re a smart man, Devitt. You should have looked into my land titles before you started this move. I’ve filed on this claim and proved up on it. I own all the land in Emigrant Gap, lock, stock, and barrel.
“Also,” he added, “I own over a hundred acres at the foot of the Pass. You’ll not cross over my land with any logging equipment whatever, now or later.”
Jud Devitt sat very still in his saddle. For the moment he was beaten, and he tried to think of some way to save face until he could circumvent this move. Noble Wheeler should have told him of this. At the same time, he appreciated a good blow. Clay Bell was shrewd, and Devitt could see no mere show of force would bluff the man.
“You deny me right-of-way? You can’t do it, Bell. A man has a right of access to his property. Legally, you haven’t a leg to stand on.”
Clay drew deep on his cigarette. The wagons hauling Devitt’s machinery were drawing nearer. “Possession has its legal points, Devitt. And I’m in possession. Also, I’m grazing cattle on Deep Creek range. Sorry, Devitt, you’ve tried to stack the cards on the wrong man.”
Jud Devitt’s patience was wearing thin. “What,” he asked harshly, “if we force a way?”
Bob Tripp glanced quickly at Devitt, his lips forming a protest. Devitt was bull-headed sometimes and might not realize what he was facing.
“You won’t,” Bell replied shortly. “You try to force a way in and you’ll have to come shooting.” “There’s four of us—one of you.”
“Yes.”
Jud Devitt studied the man before him. His impatience drove him, and he was angered to have a man standing between himself and the job he meant to do. His every urge was to drive through, to ride the man down and press on. He had three tough men with him, and all were armed. Behind, others came. Yet something held him back. It was the man himself.
It was Clay Bell, and something in his manner. Bell was neither alarmed nor excited. He gave no indication of any emotion. He just waited for Devitt to move.
Jud Devitt had the feeling suddenly that to Clay Bell this was old, not new. That he played a game in which all the moves were clear-cut and definite, while Devitt himself was uncertain.