Scottie sauntered to a chair and dropped into it, his hands folded behind his head. In this fashion, with a slow and lordly turning of the eyes, he surveyed the house.
“Not a lot to boast of as a house, Andy. Why am I here? Why, just for a chat. Dropped in to chat about old days, you know, Andy. The way you sat there, with your book upside down and your eye looking at nothing, I thought you might be thinking of the same thing. What about it?”
Andy watched him carefully, but he dropped the gun back in the holster.
“Well, Scottie?”
The latter refused to be pinned down to reasons and purposes. He rambled on. “Any of our camps could beat this, eh? In the old days when Allister led us around? Those were free times, Andy. Money, liquor, good cigars, best chuck on the range. Can you come over that here in Martindale?”
Andy was silent. Into his mind had flashed a picture of the campfire and the circle of faces bathed in yellow light and carved from black shadow.
“But I suppose you got friends down here who more than make up for what you miss, eh?”
There was a flash and twinkle in his bright eyes. How unlike the eyes of any man Lanning had seen in Martindale since his return. For the wolf light was in them, and as his heart leaped in response, he knew that the wolf light was in his own eyes. He knew that if he lived a long and peaceful life to the very end, that light would gleam from time to time in his face, and the fierce, free, joyous urge would pulse and rush through his veins. It was in him, and it was part of him. When he spoke to Scottie, like spoke to like. One word between them might mean more than a whole conversation with the men of Martindale. Two glances were question and reply.
“Leave out my Martindale friends,” said Andy dryly. “Why are you here? And who came with you?”
“I came alone.”
Andy smiled.
“You’re right, chief,” said Scottie. “You know I wouldn’t risk coming down here alone.”
“Who’s with you?”
“Ask.”
Andy whistled a prolonged, low note that traveled far and quavered up at the end weirdly. After a moment there came a still-softer answer.
“Larry la Roche and Clune, eh? Where’s the big fellow?”
Scottie made a careless gesture of lighting a match and blowing it out.
“Dead?” asked Andy huskily.
“Dead.”
“How?”
“They cornered him at Old Willow, Jordan and his two cubs of kids. Jordan came up and talked to him. His kids sneaked around behind and drilled him.”
Andy began to pace up and down lightly, swiftly, soundlessly. “I wish I’d been there!” he said. “Jordan, eh?”
“I wish you’d been there,” replied Scottie. “The big fellow would never have dropped out if you’d been there to lead. But the rest of us couldn’t handle him, and now he’s done for. As a matter of fact, chief, the three of us have come down here to make a little proposition to you.” He leaned forward, his elbows sprawling out on the table. “Lanning, will you listen?”
Andrew hesitated, and before he could answer, Scottie struck smoothly into his talk.
“Chief, we need you back. I admit that we did a dirty trick. I admit that you’ve reason not to trust us. Particularly me. But you were getting Hal Dozier off free, and every one of us hates Hal Dozier like poison, and has reason to. We couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand it. I made a mistake and tried to get Dozier, whether you wanted to or not. Well, I didn’t do it. You turned out faster in the head and stronger than the whole lot of us. I admit it, Andy. I’m older than you are. I’ve followed the game a lot longer than you’ve followed it, but I’ll freely admit that, next to Allister, you’re the best leader that ever rode the mountains. And time will give you as much or more than Allister had.
“Clune and Larry la Roche and I are three good men. You know that. But, without a leader, we play lone hands, and we get poor results. And what leader can we get? I tried to hold the boys together. I couldn’t do it. I’m ashamed to admit it, but it’s true. Then we agreed to follow Larry, but he’s too hotheaded, just as you told us a long time ago. Matter of fact we thought you were too young to know much. It’s taken the last few months to teach us that you knew a lot more than we gave you credit for. In short, we agree that we have to have you back.
“Allister picked you to follow him in the lead, and Allister was right. You were the next best man to him. We see that now. If you come to us, you’ll be the chief, just as Allister was, and you’ll settle the disputes, decide on the plans, and take two shares for yourself every time we split the pot. How does that sound to you, Andy?”
Lanning opened his lips to speak and then sank into a chair, with something like a groan. “No!” he declared.
“Lad, we need you.”
“Clear out, Scottie,” said Andrew.
“But I’m coming back,” said Scottie, rising, but smiling in the face of Andrew. “I’m coming back, and when I come back, I’ll get another answer. Remember, Andy, we’re three who can do more than three things, and with you to organize and keep us together we’ll live like kings, free kings, Andy. You’re not cut out for life in a dump like this. Don’t forget, I’m coming back.”
“Don’t do it,” replied Andrew. “I’ve given you my answer. Stay away.”
But Scottie laughed mockingly, waved from the doorway, and disappeared into the deep, hot black of the night.
Andrew stared after him with trembling lips, and his deep agitation showed in his face. He had to fight hard to keep from following.
VIII
There had been strange men in Martindale, but none stranger than the man who arrived the next morning. It would have been hard to imagine one less in tune and in touch with his surroundings. The slouching, loose-dressed careless cowpunchers on the hotel veranda stared at him askance, as he came up the steps. He wore a little, low-crowned, narrow-brimmed derby, a low collar, very tight for the bull-like neck, close-fitting clothes, through which the rolling muscles of his shoulders bulged under the coat, rubber-heeled shoes, square and comfortably blunt of toe.
When he signed his name on the register, he seemed to be trying to dig the pen through the paper, and the name sprawled huge and legible at a great distance: J. J. Gruger. While he waited to be taken to his room, he snapped a tailor-made cigarette out of a box and lighted it with singular dexterity.
He was the sort of man the cowboys would ordinarily have laughed at, almost openly. But there was something muscularly intense about the bulldog face of J. J. Gruger that discouraged laughter, and his eyes had a way of jerking from place to place and lingering a piercing instant, wherever they fell.
He was only a moment in his room upstairs, and then he came down. With short, springy steps he proceeded to the dining room and ate hugely. After that he came out onto the veranda, not to lounge about, but as one on business bent. He did not approve of Martindale any more than Martindale approved of him, and he was not at all eager to disguise his emotions. Having surveyed the white-hot, dusty street he turned with a characteristic suddenness upon one of the loungers who was no less a person than Si Hulan.
But the address of Lefty Gruger was not nearly so jerky and blunt as one would have expected from his demeanor. He drew up a chair beside Si, who eyed him curiously, and leaned a little toward the crafty old rancher. In his manner there was a sort of confiding interest, as though he were imparting a secret of great value. And he talked rather from the side of his mouth, gauging his voice so accurately that the sound traveled as far as the ear of Si Hulan and not an inch farther.