The Bandit of Hell's Bend - Edgar Rice Burroughs (reading tree .txt) 📗

“They’ll never give me anything,” she cried. “I’d never accept anything from them, but I’ll take and keep what’s mine, and my friends will help me.”

“You’ll only git yourself an’ your friends in a peck o’ trouble,” he told her.

“Listen, Hal-” she hesitated, stumbling a little over the speech she had been rehearsing. “There is something I want to say to you. You asked me to marry you. I told you that if you would wait a little while I thought that I could say yes. I can’t say yes, Hal, ever, for I don’t love you. I’m sorry, but the only fair thing to do was tell you.”

He looked a bit crestfallen and disconcerted, for, though he had realized that it would be poor policy to press his suit now that she was penniless, it injured his pride to be told that he could not have won her in any event, and suddenly came the realization that, money or no money, he wanted her very much. His infatuation for Lillian Manill was revealed in all its sordidness-it was not love. All the money in the world, all the clothes in New York, would not make Lillian Manill as desirable as Diana Henders.

Colby was a crude, uneducated man, yet he discerned in Diana Henders a certain quality, far beyond his powers of analysis, that placed her in a sphere to which Lillian Manill and her kind might never hope to aspire. He knew now that he wanted Diana Henders for herself and Lillian Manill for her money and for that coarse, feminine attraction that certain types of women have for coarse men.

He lived in a more or less lawless country and a more or less lawless age, so it was not strange that there should have crept into his mind the thought that he might possess them both. Naturally it would be only the part of good business to possess lawfully the one with the money. It was only the flash of a thought, though, and he quickly put it aside.

“I’m plumb sorry, Dl,” he said; “but of course you know your own business.”

That was all he said, but he did a great deal of thinking and the more he thought the more he realized how much he wanted her now that she seemed least accessible. His face wore an expression such as Diana Henders had never seen upon it before-he was not the laughing, good-natured Hal that she had liked very much and almost loved. There was something almost sinister about him, and she wondered if being disappointed in love had this effect upon men.

“How is everything at the ranch since I’ve been away?” she asked presently.

“So-so,” he replied. “Some o’ the hands want to quit. They’re waitin’ ‘til you come, to git their checks.”

“Who are they?”

“Pete, Shorty an’ Idaho,” he replied. “They’d a-ben the fust to be let out after the change come, anyhow, so it don’t make no difference.”

“You planned to stay on as foreman?” she asked.

“Shore! Why not? I got to work for someone, don’t I?”

She made no reply and they rode on in silence toward the ranch. He had given up trying to dissuade her. Let them do their own dirty work, he thought. As they neared the ranch a horseman emerged from the yard and came toward them at a run amidst a cloud of dust that obscured the ranch and ail else behind him. It was Texas Pete. He brought his horse to its haunches beside her and wheeled the animal about on its hind feet.

“I jest got in, Miss,” he said, “an’ Tom told me that you had sent word in that I was to meet you. I’m plumb sorry I was late.”

Each man ignored the other as completely as though he had not existed.

“I understand you want to quit, Pete,” said the girl; “you and Shorty and Idaho.”

Pete looked down, shamefacedly. “We was a-aimin’ to,” he said.

“I wish you’d come up to the office and bring Shorty and Idaho with you when we get home,” she said. “I want to talk with you.”

“All right, Miss.”

The three finished the ride in silence. Diana dismounted with them at the corral and leaving her horse for Pete to unsaddle walked toward the office. As she approached the doorway she saw that there were several people ire the room and when she crossed the threshold found herself face to face with Corson, Lillian Manill and the two Wainrights. Corson nodded and he and the younger Wainright rose.

“Good evening, Miss Henders,” said Corson; “back safely, I see.”

She ignored his greeting and stood for a moment silently eying them through narrowed lids. Her wide-brimmed sombrero sat straight and level above slightly contracted brows. A tendril of hair waved softly over one temple where it had escaped the stiff confinement of the heavy hat, but it did not tend to soften the light in those cold, steady eyes, reflecting the bitterness of her resentment toward these four.

About her hips a cartridge-filled belt supported a heavy gun-no toy such as women sometimes effect, but a .45, grim and suggestive. Its grip was shiny with usage and the blue was worn from the steel in places.

“I know little about law, Mr. Corson,” she said, without prelude. “I have lived almost all my life a long way beyond either the protection or the menace of law. We do not bother much about it out here; but we understand moral rights perfectly. We know what justice is and we have our own ways of enforcing it. We have similar ways of protecting our just rights, as well.

“These means I intend to invoke against you, all of you, who have come here with the intention of robbing me of what is rightly mine. Though I owe you no consideration it is my duty to warn you that our methods in such matters are usually sudden and always unpleasant.

“I shall give you, Mr. Corson and Miss Manill, an hour to leave the premises-the buckboard will be ready then. Mr. Wainright and his son have five minutes, as they have no excuse whatsoever for being here. Now, go!”