Matt had a haunting feeling he had seen Massey before, but could not place him. Massey wrote rapidly and as fast as the money was laid down and counted, he pocketed it.
When Matt stepped up to the barrel, he put down his money. “Mathieu Bardoul,” he said.
There was a sudden movement as a man seated behind and to the left of Massey turned suddenly to glance up at Matt. The man was sharp featured with a hooked nose. His slate gray eyes seemed to have no depth, and they were disturbing eyes, long and narrow under the straight bar of his brows and a tight skull cap of sandcoloured hair. The man stared up at Matt, unsmiling. “From Julesburg?” he asked.
“I’ve been there.”
Massey looked around. “You know this man, Logan?”
Logon Deane!
Matt’s expression did not change. This then, was the killer, the man reputed to have slain twenty men in gun battles.
The man at Dean’s side was Batsell Hammer.
“Don’t reckon I do,” Dean said, keeping his eyes on Matt’s “only there was a Matt Bardoul in Julesburg who was quite a hand with a six-gun.”
Clive Massey looked up. Somehow, Matt had the impression that Massey had been waiting for him, that he was prepared for him. Why, he could not have guessed.
Their eyes met. “Sorry,” Clive said, “we don’t want any gunfighters. Too much chance of trouble, and we want this to be a peaceful trip.”
The room was suddenly quiet, and men were listening. Into that silence Matt dropped his words like a stone into the utter calm of a pool. “If you’ll take a renegade like Bat Hammer, you’ll take anybody!”
Hammer’s face whitened and he came to his feet with an oath. “I don’t have to take that!” he shouted.
“That’s right,” Bardoul replied calmly, “you don’t.”
Silence hung heavy in the room, and Logan Deane, his thin, cobralike lips parted in a faint smile, watched Matt as a tomcat watches another. Matt was aware of the glance, but his eyes held Hammer’s and he waited, his hands, hanging loosely at his sides.
Bat’s gunhand hovered over his pistol butt, and his eyes held Bardoul’s, then slowly his fingers relaxed, and his hand eased cautiously to his side. Abruptly, he sat down.
Massey hesitated no longer. “Who recommended this man?”
Buffalo Murphy stepped forward beligerently. “I did, an’ if he don’t go, I don’t. We need him bad. He knows the Sioux, an’ he knows that country.”
“With Phillips, yourself and Tate Lyon, I scarcely think we’ll need him.” Massey’s voice was final.
“We’d better take him,” Phillips said suddenly. “We need him.”
Massey glanced up impatiently. This man, Matt decided, disliked opposition, was impatient of all restraint. Massey was irritated now, and his face showed it.
A recommendation from Phillips who enjoyed the respect of all these men for his knowledge of the country and the Sioux was not lightly to be passed over, yet Bardoul was sure that Clive Massey intended to do just that, but before he could offer further objections, Brian Coyle interrupted.
“What are we waiting for?” he boomed. “Sign him up!”
Only an instant did Clive Massey hesitate, then he wrote down the name and pocketed the money Matt had placed on the barrel head.
Matt did not move.
Massey looked up impatiently, angrily. “Next man!” he said sharply.
“Not yet.” Matt Bardoul smiled down at Massey. “I want a receipt.”
Clive Massey’s eyes narrowed and temper flamed in his face. “Listen!” he snapped. “Do you intend to…!”
“This is merely business,” Matt interrupted, “no offense intended.”
“Give it to him!” Coyle said, waving a hand. “Why not? Come to think of it, I’ll want one myself!”
Clive Massey let the air out of his lungs slowly, but anger betrayed itself in his every movement. He wrote out the receipt, and then Buffalo Murphy followed. He demanded and got his receipt. Matt’s demand had set a fashion and every man who followed asked for his receipt. Even a few of those who had gone through before Matt did, returned, and asked for them.
If ever he had seen hatred in a man’s eyes it had been in Massey’s when he looked up at him that last time. From now on Matt knew he could expect no friendship from at least one of the leaders of the wagon train. Yet he could not escape the impression that he had been awaited and that Massey had planned to rule him out. Only he had not expected opposition.
A hand touched his arm. “Matt, don’t you remember me?”
He turned, and found himself looking into the grinning face of a sun browned young cowhand. “Ban Hardy! I haven’t seen you since we came over the trail from Texas together!”
Massey’s eyes were on them. He’ll remember us, Matt thought, that’s certain.
“Gosh, Man! It’ll be like old times!” Hardy exclaimed. Then he added, “In more ways than one!”
Murphy nodded. “I’m wonderin’ some my ownself. But if there’s a skunk up the crick, we’ll smoke him out!” He shrugged. “No matter. I was aimin’ to head back into the Big Horn country an’ this is as good a way to go as any!”
Already, Matt reflected, they were taking sides. Clive Massey, Logan Deane and Bat Hammer. There was more than accident in their sitting together, more than accident that Massey had been so determined to weed him out.
Why?
It was a question to which he could find no answer. One thing he did know, and that was that this was only a beginning, and that more was to come between himself and Clive Massey.
And he still had to face Colonel Orvis Pearson.
CHAPTER II
Why had Pearson failed to step forward during the altercation with Massey?
Bardoul puzzled over that the following morning as he sat at breakfast. He knew Pearson hated him and the man would certainly have no desire to see Matt Bardoul accompany a wagon train where he was in command.
Without doubt if he persisted in going along he would be surrounded by men with reason to dislike or hate him. Colonel Orvis Pearson would be in command, and Clive Massey was unquestionably one of the leaders, while Logan Deane and Batsell Hammer had no cause to like him. Yet on the other side of the ledger he had such friends as Buffalo Murphy and Ban Hardy.
Why had Portugee Phillips wanted him along? The two had never been particularly friendly in the past, although each knew and respected the other’s ability. Did Phillips know something unknown to the others? Or did he merely suspect something?
Regardless of enemies or danger, Matt knew he was not going to drop out. Jacquine Coyle was going along, and that was reason enough for him.
The tall girl with the red gold hair and blue eyes had upset him more than he cared to admit. Yet when he thought of her now he recalled some words he had heard once: There are in a man’s life certain ultimate things, and just one ultimate woman. When a man finds that woman he does not pass on, unless he is a fool.
“And I’m not passing on!” he said aloud.
Murphy turned his head and looked at him, then grinned understandingly. “Talkin’ to yourself, huh? I do it, myself. It means you’ve been alone too long!”
Matt nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe you’ve hit it,” he said, “and I think you have.”
He remembered suddenly and turned to look at the burly mountain man. “Buff, didn’t you have a squaw back in the Big Horns?”
“Sure did!” Murphy beamed at the memory. “Arapaho, she was an’ a durned good un, too! Most ways, that is. Bought her off ol’ Bear Paw Henderson! Give a dozen prime beaver for her, an’ a spotted pony I took off a Crow whose aim was bad.
“Nearly killed me, he did. Shot at me an’ missed. I shot at him an’ didn’t!”
Murphy nodded musingly. “Yessir! Quite a squaw, she was! Bear Paw, he had her from her Pa, ol’ Broken Hand, the Arapaho chief?”
“What became of her?”
“Her?” Buffalo furrowed his brow. “Let’s see, now. She was the one just afore the big snow … nigh as I can recall I sent her back to her Pa.
“Uh huh, that was it! I give her three buffalo hides an’ a couple of ponies … that steeldust was limpin’ in the off hind leg, anyway. Gettin’ crabby, that squaw was. Wanted to settle down with the Injuns!”
“Only one way to handle a woman, my old man used to say,” Ban suggested, “an’ that was to whup ’em good with a trace chain the fust time you took ’em home. Then whup ’em good once a week for the fust three weeks, an’ after that all you have to do is just rattle the chain!”
Ban Hardy drained his coffee cup and got to his feet. “Got you an outfit yet, Matt? If you ain’t, I got me a German spotted who brought five wagons down from St. Cloud, up in Minnesota. He’s got good teams, too.”