Melissy needed to hear no more to understand the situation, but if she
had, the next words of Boone would have cleared it up.
"When I met up with you and happened on the news that you was taking a
message to Farnum, and when I got onto the fact that Morse, as you call
him, was moving his sheep across the dead line, relying on you having got
his letter to the cattlemen to make it safe, it seemed luck too good to
be true. All I had to do was to persuade you to stay right here with me,
and Mr. Morse would walk into the pass and be wiped out. You get the
beauty of it, my friend, don't you? I'm responsible, but it will be
Farnum and his friends that will bear the blame. There ain't but one flaw
in the whole thing: Morse will never know that it's me that killed him."
"You devil!" cried the boy, with impotent passion.
"I've waited ten years for this day, and it's come at last. Don't you
think for a moment I'm going to weaken. No, sir! You'll sit there with my
gun poked in your face just as you've sat for six hours. It's my say-so
to-day, sir," Boone retorted, malevolence riding triumph in his voice.
Melissy's first impulse was to confront the man, her next to slip away
without being discovered and then give the alarm.
"Yes, sir," continued the cowpuncher; "I scored on Mr. Morse two or three
nights ago, when I played hell with one of his sheep camps, and to-day I
finish up with him. His sheep have been watched for weeks, and at the
first move it's all up with him and them. Farnum's vaqueros will pay my
debt in full. Just as soon as I'm right sure of it I'll be jogging along
to Dead Man's Cache, and you can go order the coffin for your boss."
The venom of the man was something to wonder at. It filled the listening
girl with sick apprehension. She had not known that such hatred could live
in the world.
Quietly she led her pony back, mounted, and made a wide detour until she
struck the trail above. Already she could hear the distant bleat of sheep
which told her that the herd was entering the pass. Recklessly she urged
her pony forward, galloping into the saddle between the peaks without
regard to the roughness of the boulder-strewn path. A voice from above
hailed her with a startled shout as she flew past. Again, a shot rang out,
the bullet whistling close to her ear. But nothing could stop her till she
reached the man she meant to save.