As Vic Gregg left the house, the new moon peered at him over a black mountain-top, a sickle1 of white with a half imaginary line rounding the rest of the circle, and to the shaken mind of Vic it seemed as if a ghostly spectator had come out to watch the tragedy among the peaks. At the line of the rocks the sheriff spoke2.
“Gregg, you've busted3 your contract. You didn't bring him out.”
Vic threw his revolver on the ground.
“I bust4 the rest of it here and now. I'm through. Put on your irons and take me back. Hang me and be damned to you, but I'll do no more to double-cross him.”
Sliver5 Waldron drew from his pocket something which jangled faintly, but the sheriff stopped him with a word. He sat up behind his rock.
“I got an idea, Gregg, that you've finished up your job and double-crossed us! Does he know that I'm out here? Sit down there out of sight.”
“I'll do that,” said Gregg, obeying, “because you got the right to make me, but you ain't got the right to make me talk, and nothin' this side of hell can pry6 a word out of me!”
The sheriff drew down his brows until his eyes were merely cavities of blackness. Very tenderly he fondled the rifle-butt which lay across his knees, and never in the mountain-desert had there been a more humbly7 unpretentious figure of a man.
He said: “Vic, I been thinkin' that you had the man-sized makin's of a skunk8, but I'm considerable glad to see I've judged you wrong. Sit quiet here. I ain't goin' to put no irons on you if you give me your parole.”
“I'll see you in hell before I give you nothin'. I was a man, or a partways man, till I met up with you tonight, and now I'm a houn'-dog that's done my partner dirt! God amighty, what made me do it?”
He beat his knuckles9 against his forehead.
“What you've done you can't undo,” answered the sheriff. “Vic, I've seen gents do considerable worse than you've done and come clean afterwards. You're goin' to get off for what you've done to Blondy, and you're goin' to live straight afterwards. You're goin' to get married and you're goin' to play white. Why, man, I had to use you as far as I could. But you think I wanted you to bring me out Barry? You couldn't look Betty square in the face if you'd done what you set out to do. Now, I ain't pressin' you, but I done some scouting10 while you was away, and I heard four men's voices in the house. Can you tell me who's there?”
“You've played square, Pete,” answered Vic hoarsely11, “and I'll do my part. Go down and get on your hosses and ride like hell; because in ten minutes you're goin' to have three bad ones around your necks.”
A mutter came from the rest of the posse, for this was rather more than they had planned ahead. The sheriff, however, only sighed, and as the moonlight increased Vic could see that he was deeply, childishly contented12, for in the heart of the little dusty man there was that inextinguishable spark, the love of battle. Chance had thrown him on the side of the law, but sooner or later dull times were sure to come and then Pete Glass would cut out work of his own making go bad. The love of the man-trail is a passion that works in two ways, and they who begin by hunting will in the end be the hunted; the mountain-desert is filled with such histories.
“Three to five,” said the sheriff, “sounds more interestin', Vic.”
A sudden passion to destroy that assured calm rose in Gregg.
“Three common men might make you a game,” he said, glowering13, “but them ain't common ones. One of 'em I don't know, but he has a damned nervous hand. Another is Lee Haines!”
He had succeeded in part, at least. The sheriff sat bolt erect14; he seemed to be hearing distant music.
“Lee Haines!” he murmured. “That was Jim Silent's man. They say he was as fast with a gun as Jim himself.” He sighed again. “They's nothing like a big man, Vic, to fill your sights.”
“Daniels and Haines, suppose you count them off agin' the rest of your gang, Pete. That leaves Barry for you.” He grinned maliciously16. “D'you know what Barry it is?”
“It's a kind of common name, Vic.”
“Pete, have you heard of Whistlin' Dan?”
No doubt about it, he had burst the confidence of the sheriff into fragments. The little man began to pant and even in the dim light Vic could see that his face was working.
“Him!” he said at length. And then: “I might of knowed! Him!” He leaned closer. “Keep it to yourself, Vic, or you'll have the rest of the boys runnin' for cover before the fun begins.”
He snuggled a little closer to his rock and turned his head towards the house.
“Him!” he said again.
Columbus, when he saw the land of his dream wavering blue in the distance, might have hailed it with such a heart-filling whisper, and Vic knew that when these two met, these two slender, small men—with the uneasy hands, there would be a battle whose fame would ring from range to range.
“If they was only a bit more light,” muttered the sheriff. “My God, Vic, why ain't the moon jest a mite17 nearer the full!”
After that, not a word for a long time until the lights in the ............