When she went out at last, she carried her head with a high stubbornness and walked bravely into the living room. Elizabeth was not there; she was tending the wounded man. And the rest of the posse was either gone home or had found quarters in the house. But the two sheriffs sat opposite each other. They scowled at Mary when she came in; only from Morgan Valentine did she receive the faint glimmer of a smile. As for Mrs. Valentine, she turned upon her niece a somber glance that betided no good.
“A pretty night's work for you, Mary Valentine,” she said. “Turning your uncle's house into a refuge for outlaws—and getting a man shot. All your work, too, Mary. And I'd like to know what you got to say to Sheriff Claney—and Sheriff Caswell, that's come so far all to be fooled by your doings.”
“Hush, Mother,” said Morgan Valentine. “That's a little too much.”
“Don't bother about me,” said Sheriff Caswell gloomily. “I don't hold no spite agin' the young lady—which I never knew womenfolk yet that didn't take the side of the underdog.”
“More power to the women!” muttered Morgan Valentine.
“Right!” observed Sheriff Caswell with surprising calmness. “I wouldn't wish my own girl to help corner a man. No, sir. And I don't hold no grudge, young lady, though you did lie most amazing for that fox Dreer.”
Mary Valentine stood where the firelight could play full on her face—and there is nothing like firelight to bring out the luminous tenderness of a woman's eyes. She cast out her hands toward the two men she had disappointed.
“How could I help it?” she said. “There were so many of you. And he was alone!”
They would have been more than men if they had not melted to some degree. Indeed, Mary would have done well on the stage.
“And yet I suppose,” she said, slipping into a chair, “that he's a scoundrel; a worthless rascal!”
Mary was not very old, and, I suppose, she was not very wise; but she understood that the way to guide a man is to oppose him.
“Really,” she said, “the moment I looked at Jess Dreer I knew that he was worthless.”
It caused Sheriff Caswell to take fire immediately, and inwardly she rejoiced.
“Then you know more'n I do,” he muttered.
“But haven't you chased him a thousand miles?”
“I had to. I dunno just how many thousand they is on his head. It ain't the money I want, but if I can get rid of Jess Dreer—why, they ain't much chance of another bad one ever crossing my trail. They'd keep clear of my country if they knowed that I'd run Jess Dreer to the ground.”
Mary Valentine shivered. She gazed with open admiration on the sheriff.
“It must take courage,” she murmured, “to follow a cold-blooded murderer!”
The sheriff looked at her. He was not displeased by her admiration, but he felt that he must put this very absolute young woman in her place.
“If you call him cool,” he said, “why, I call him that, too. But murder is a pretty strong word. Man-killer he is. They ain't any doubt about that. But murder, I ain't ever heard of his doing.”
“Isn't that a close distinction?” she said. “Is there much difference between a murderer and a man-killer?”
“To you, maybe not,” said the sheriff deliberately. “To me, they're just about the world apart. A murderer is a snake that strikes for the sake of striking. A man-killer is one that fights when he has to. But Jess Dreer—why, he'll almost take water before he'll fight. That's how mild he is.”
She had to lower her eyes, such a warm happiness had come in her blood that she feared it would shine out in her glance.
“For my part,” she said, “I think his mildness is just a sham. It looked snaky enough to me.”
“Then,” said the sheriff, “you and me see with different eyes. What chance did Jess Dreer have, I ask you? Jud Linsey's hoss is stole. It looks bad for Pete Dreer. Jud gets a crowd together. They put on masks and go to Dreer's house. They take Pete out, and when he says he's innocent, they laugh at him, the case was so black agin' him. They take him out, string him up, and let him swing. Along comes Jess Dreer and sees his father dead before the door of the house. He busts around town and finds out that Linsey done it.
''Along about that time the real hoss thief is found with the goods. They bring him in. They ain't any doubt that old Pete Dreer was innocent when he was lynched, but he was such a queer, silent old cuss that nobody would of believed it—considering how black the case was agin' him.
“Well, Jess Dreer buries his father and then he goes to the sheriff and asks for justice on Jud Linsey. Did he get it? No! Partly because they wasn't anybody that seen the lynching except them that was in the mob, and everybody in the mob was just as guilty as Jud Linsey in the eyes of the law. So would they talk? Would they accuse Jud and accuse themselves at the same time? No, they wasn't any chance of that.
“Besides, the sheriff was pretty thick with Jud Linsey, Jud having married his daughter. So he tells Jess Dreer to get out of his office and stop talking like a fool.
“You see, he didn't suspect that they was anything very hard about Jess. Nobody did. He'd been quiet as a lamb all his life.
“So Jess Dreer leaves the sheriff and goes out to the saloon where Jud Linsey was. I was there at the bar, and I seen everything that happened. Jess walks in and stands there with his hands on his hips.
“ 'Jud Linsey,' he sings out, 'I've been to the sheriff and asked for the law on you. But the sheriff has cussed me out and told me I couldn't come at you through the law. So I'm going to use my own hands. Linsey, I'm going to kill you.'
“Well, Linsey turns on his heel and has two guns out before you could wink, and he hits the floor without shooting either of them guns off. The reason why was because a slug out of Dreer's gun had gone through his heart.
“Now, that was what opened our eyes to Jess. Jud Linsey was called a quick man with his shooting irons, but beside Jess that day he looked as if he was standing still to have his picture taken. After Jud drops, Jess sings out in his quiet way: 'Well, boys, you see what I've done. And I ask you: What other way out was there for me?'
“They wasn't any other way, and we all knowed it. So we didn't say nothing. And Jess turns his back and walks out without nobody lifting his hand. But old 'Pike' Malone says to me, he says: 'Caswell, they's a good man gone wrong today.'
“And Pike told the truth. The sheriff went near crazy when he heard about the killing of his son-in-law. He rides up to the house of Jess Dreer and calls him out and cusses him up and down and tells him to come with him. The sheriff was aching for a gun play, but Jess didn't come halfway. He goes right along to the jail.
“Then comes the trial. They was twelve fair men on the jury, but what could they do? It was a plain case of manslaughter, the easiest they could let Jess off. And after he heard the decision, he busted jail.
“The sheriff followed hotfoot; some said that he left the way open for Jess so that he could have the pleasure of dropping him with his own guns instead of waiting for Jess to serve his sentence. The sheriff runs Jess down easy—because the first place Jess went was home. The sheriff goes in for him, and the sheriff never comes out again. But Jess Dreer comes out and rides off on the sheriff's hoss.
“They wasn't anything for it except to start after him with a posse, not that any of us really wanted to tackle the job. But we couldn't have our town put on the map as an easy place for a getaway. That wouldn't do. We got our guns and climbed on our hosses and followed Jess Dreer for blood.
“He'd have got away, because he has the real eye for a trail, and he knows how to shake any crowd that ever got together. But his hoss went lame, and we caught up with him.”
At this point the sheriff paused, sighed, and looked for a long moment at the fire.
“That was the time,” he said at length, “that Jess Dreer cut his name into the memory of the Southwest—and he cut it deep. Afterward Jess Dreer went on, and we went back. I got this that day.”
He touched a scar where a bullet had furrowed the base of his broad, tanned neck.
“And now here I am on his trail,” said the sheriff. He shook his head gloomily. “I may get Jess. Chances are that Jess'll get me. I ain't got no grudge agin' him. But I got to make a place for myself. It's a gamble how the trail will turn out, but it's a sure thing that they don't want a sheriff long down my way until they find the man that can get Jess Dreer. What've I got on my side? Numbers. They don't count. You've just seen how he slides through them. What else have I got? The fact that Jess has got away so often that maybe his luck is just about played out.
“Eight years of luck. Pretty soon he'll tumble. And—maybe—I'll be there with a gun to catch him when he drops!”
At the conclusion of this tale there was a silence; even Mrs. Valentine was motionless and her knitting needles were crossed idly for the first time in many an hour. But Mary, without a word, got up and left the room. She walked with her head fallen. There seemed to be a haze across her eyes, for when she reached the door, she fumbled blindly for it a moment.
All of this Morgan Valentine saw. What passed through his mind it would be impossible to say, but when the door had closed upon his niece, he said softly to Caswell: “Sheriff, between you and me, I think it'd be a pretty good idea if you didn't talk no more to Mary about this Jess Dreer.”
“If you had a house built of dead leaves,” said Morgan Valentine, “would you encourage folks to come and light matches in it?”
