Joe Pollard grew downcast under her scorn. And Terry, sensing that the crisis of the argument had passed, watched the other four men in the room. They had not paid the slightest attention to the debate during its later phases. And two of them—Slim and huge Phil Marvin—had begun to roll dice on a folded blanket, the little ivories winking in the light rapidly until they came to a rest at the farther end of the cloth. Possibly this family strife was a common thing in the Pollard household. At any rate, the father now passed off from accusation to abrupt apology. “You always get me riled at the end of the day, Kate. Damn it! Can't you never bear with a gent?”
The tigerish alertness passed from Kate Pollard. She was filled all at once with a winning gentleness and, crossing to her father, took his heavy hands in hers.
“I reckon I'm a bad one,” she accused herself. “I try to get over tantrums—but—I can't help it! Something—just sort of grabs me by the throat when I get mad. I—I see red.”
“Hush up, honey,” said the big man tenderly, and he ran his thick fingers over her hair. “You ain't so bad. And all that's bad in you comes out of me. You forget and I'll forget.”
He waved across the table.
“Terry'll be thinking we're a bunch of wild Indians the way we been actin'.”
“Oh!”
Plainly she was recalled to the presence of the stranger for the first time in many minutes and, dropping her chin in her hand, she studied the new arrival.
He found it difficult to meet her glance. The Lord had endowed Terry Hollis with a remarkable share of good looks, and it was not the first time that he had been investigated by the eyes of a woman. But in all his life he had never been subjected to an examination as minute, as insolently frank as this one. He felt himself taken part and parcel, examined in detail as to forehead, chin, and eyes and heft of shoulders, and then weighed altogether. In self-defense he looked boldly back at her, making himself examine her in equal detail. Seeing her so close, he was aware of a marvellously delicate olive-tanned skin with delightful tints of rose just beneath the surface. He found himself saying inwardly: “It's easy to look at her. It's very easy. By the Lord, she's beautiful!”
As for the girl, it seemed that she was not quite sure in her judgment. For now she turned to her father with a faint frown of wonder. And again it seemed to Terry that Joe Pollard made an imperceptible sign, such as he had made to the four men when he introduced Terry.
But now he broke into breezy talk.
“Met Terry down in Pedro's—”
The girl seemed to have dismissed Terry from her mind already, for she broke in: “Crooked game he's running, isn't it?”
“I thought so till today. Then I seen Terry, here, trim Pedro for a flat twenty thousand!”
“Oh,” nodded the girl. Again her gaze reverted leisurely to the stranger and with a not unflattering interest.
“And then I seen him lose most of it back again. Roulette.”
She nodded, keeping her eyes on Terry, and the boy found himself desiring mightily to discover just what was going on behind the changing green of her eyes. He was shocked when he discovered. It came like the break of high dawn in the mountains of the Big Bend. Suddenly she had smiled openly, frankly. “Hard luck, partner!”
A little shivering sense of pleasure ran through him. He knew that he had been admitted by her—accepted.
Her father had thrown up his head.
“Someone come in the back way. Oregon, go find out!”
Dark-eyed Oregon Charlie slipped up and through the door. Everyone in the room waited, a little tense, with lifted heads. Slim was studying the last throw that Phil Marvin had made. Terry could not but wonder what significance that “back way” had. Presently Oregon reappeared.
“Pete's come.”
“The hell!”
“Went upstairs.”
“Wants to be alone,” interrupted the girl. “He'll come down and talk when he feels like it. That's Pete's way.”
“Watching us, maybe,” growled Joe Pollard, with a shade of uneasiness still. “Damned funny gent, Pete is. Watches a man like a cat; watches a gopher hole all day, maybe. And maybe the gent he watches is a friend he's known for ten years. Well—let Pete go. They ain't no explaining him.”
Through the last part of his talk, and through the heaviness of his voice, cut another tone, lighter, sharper, venomous: “Phil, you gummed them dice that last time!”
Joe Pollard froze in place; the eyes of the girl widened. Terry, looking across the room, saw Phil Marvin scoop up the dice and start to his feet.
“You lie, Slim!”
Instinctively Terry slipped his hand onto his gun. It was what Phil Marvin had done, as a matter of fact. He stood swelling and glowering, staring down at Slim Dugan. Slim had not risen. His thin, lithe body was coiled, and he reminded Terry in ugly fashion of a snake ready to strike. His hand was not near his gun. It was the calm courage and self- confidence of a man who is sure of himself and of his enemy. Terry had heard of it before, but never seen it. As for Phil, it was plain that he was ill at ease in spite of his bulk and the advantage of his position. He was ready to fight. But he was not at all pleased with the prospect.
Terry again glanced at the witnesses. Every one of them was alert, but there was none of that fear which comes in the faces of ordinary men when strife between men is at hand. And suddenly Terry knew that every one of the five men in the room was an old familiar of danger, every one of them a past master of gun fighting!
CHAPTER 24
The uneasy wait continued for a moment or more. The whisper of Joe Pollard to his daughter barely reached the ear of Terry.
“Cut in between 'em, girl. You can handle 'em. I can't!”
She responded instantly, before Terry recovered from his shock of surprise.
“Slim, keep away from your gun!”
She spoke as she whirled from her chair to her feet. It was strange to see her direct all her attention to Slim, when Phil Marvin seemed the one about to draw.
“I ain't even nearin' my gun,” asserted Slim truthfully. “It's Phil that's got a strangle hold on his.”
“You're waiting for him to draw,” said the girl calmly enough. “I know you, Slim. Phil, don't be a fool. Drop your hand away from that gat!”
He hesitated; she stepped directly between him and his enemy of the moment and jerked the gun from its holster. Then she faced Slim. Obviously Phil was not displeased to have the matter taken out of his hands; obviously Slim was not so pleased. He looked coldly up to the girl.
“This is between him and me,” he protested. “I don't need none of your help, Kate.”
“Don't you? You're going to get it, though. Gimme that gun, Slim Dugan!”
“I want a square deal,” he complained. “I figure Phil has been crooking the dice on me.”
“Bah! Besides, I'll give you a square deal.”
She held out her hand for the weapon.
“Got any doubts about me being square, Slim?”
“Kate, leave this to me!”