A heel clicked in the alcove. For the first time Norris, or Boone as the
Southern girl had called him, became aware of a third party in the room.
Melissy was leaning out of the window. She called down to a man standing
on the street.
"Jack, come up here quick. I want you."
Boone took a step forward. "You here, 'Lissie Lee?"
She laughed scornfully. "Yes, I'm here. An unexpected pleasure, isn't
it?"
"Do you know Ferne Yarnell?" he asked, for once taken aback.
"It looks as if I do."
His quick furtive eye fell upon an envelope on the floor. He picked it up.
Upon it was written, "Miss Ferne Yarnell," and in the corner, "Introducing
Miss Lee."
A muscle twitched in his face. When he looked up there was an expression
of devilish malignity on it.
"Mr. Bellamy's handwriting, looks like." He turned to the Arizona girl.
"Then I didn't put the fellow out of business."
"No, you coward."
The angry color crept to the roots of his hair. "Better luck next time."
The door knob rattled. Someone outside was trying to get in. Those inside
the room paid no obvious attention to him. The venomous face of the
cattle detective held the women fascinated.
"When Dick Bellamy ambushed Shep he made a hell of a bad play of it. My
old mammy used to say that the Boones were born wolves. I can see where
she was right. The man that killed my brother gets his one of these days
and don't you forget it. You just stick around. We're due to shoot this
thing out, him and me," the man continued, his deep-socketed eyes burning
from the grim handsome face.
"Open the door," ordered a voice from the hall, shaking the knob
violently.
"You don't know he killed your brother. Someone else may have done it. And
it may have been done in self defence," the Arkansas girl said to Boone in
a voice so low and reluctant that it appeared the words were wrung from
her by torture.
"Think I'm a buzzard head? Why for did he run away? Why did he jump for
the sandhills soon as the word came to arrest him?" He snapped together
his straight, thin-lipped mouth, much as a trap closes on its prey.
A heavy weight hurtled against the door and shook it to the hinges.
Melissy had been edging to the right. Now with a twist of her lissom body
she had slipped past the furious man and turned the key.