In the dawn of the next day Joe Norman took horse and rode again for Salt Springs with a rested mustang under him; and in the first dark of the night he reached the town once more. A great many things may happen in the mind of a man between dawn and dark, and a very great many had happened to Joe Norman. Vague motions were passing through his small soul all that time, troubling, overwhelming him, almost.
For he began to lose the malignant hatred of the Valentines which had spurred him on at first. He was seeing himself in a different light. The whole thing sprang out of the smile of Mary Valentine at that dance. It had gone to his head. It had robbed him of his senses. Then the pang that had gripped him when she turned away from him the next time they met; the hasty word that burned his tongue the moment he had uttered it; then the meeting with Charlie Valentine. And out of that the affair went on into other hands.
Still it was the smile of Mary Valentine that was the starting point. It dazed the boy to think how much had come from flirting with that slip of a girl. It was because of that flirtation that he had fallen. And then, to avenge him, Jud Boone, the man-killer, had been called in to strike down Charlie. And to meet the power of Jud Boone, the Valentines had appealed—through Mary herself, perhaps?—to a still more dreaded name, Jess Dreer himself. So Jud Boone had died, but still that smile of Mary worked. It was poison running through many minds.
Jud Boone was dead, and now the cause was taken up anew. There was another goal—Jess Dreer himself, against whom all the power of the Normans, all the cunning and strength of the law, was turned. And what was the cause? Because Mary had smiled!
One man shot, others brought to the verge of death, one killed in the midst of his prime as a fighter, a jail broken, a town cast into confusion, and twenty men ready to take the trail for the head of Dreer—all this out of the smile of a girl.
Two things connected themselves in the mind of the boy, at the end of all this remembering—Jess Dreer and Mary Valentine. They were the beginning and the end. He felt that there was also a kinship between them. She was more beautiful than other women. And Dreer was stronger than other men. And surely there had been no spite or malice in Mary. He was able to recognize that, at this distance. He saw that she had simply been playing a game that other people, without her will, turned into deadly earnest. Truly, it was not fair to accuse the girl. No more than it was possible to accuse Jess Dreer of sneaking crimes.
A dozen times he jerked back on the reins and brought his horse to a stand as he remembered those words: “Son, are you straight?”
And he had lied. Something told him that another man, the moment the first deceit was known, would have gone for his gun. But Jess Dreer had waited. He had put his trust in Carrol, and Carrol had sold him. Vaguely, Joe Norman wondered how any human being could sell such a man as Dreer. His right hand tingled still, in memory, where those bony fingers had closed over it. And he felt that the glance of the outlaw, plunging into his soul, had found good metal there, and something clean, and he had been trusted for his own sake as well as for that of Carrol.
His head would jerk up when that occurred to him.
Suddenly he was in Salt Springs. And he was sorry. He wished that what lay before him could be postponed. He wished that the trail still stretched far ahead of him, so that he could think, his thoughts keeping time to the sway of the mustang.
But now the horse was put up, and he was in the sheriffs office at the jail, with his father before him and Clancy at one side. He was seeing them both in a new light, and a filmy figure was between them and him—the face of Dreer.
His father took one look at him and then growled: “Bad news!”
“It can't be bad news,” said Clancy. “He's just fagged. Sit down, Joe.”
And Joe sat down. His mind was working dimly, but like lightning. He was seeing many things, but none of them clearly. Chiefly he felt that what had at first been a natural thing, the carrying on of a feud just as he had heard the family used to do in the old day in Kentucky, was now different. It was cheap, false, dirty—it was the betrayal of a fine man.
“Well,” said the sheriff at last, “bad news or good news—out with it!”
That was all he could think of. It gave him a moment for further thought.
“Then why the devil did you come back? Why ain't you up there looking for him?”
“I done what you told me,” he said stubbornly. “And he wasn't there.”
“Did you ever see such a boy? And why didn't you hit his trail and find him? Afraid?”
“They wasn't any trail. He ain't the kind that leaves a trail.”
The two older men silently glared at him. Then they stared at one another.
Suddenly Claney leaned forward and stretched out his left arm on the desk. He began to count off his questions with the forefinger of his right hand, touching each of his left-hand fingers one by one and then curling them back so that at length a clenched fist was shaking under the face of the boy. That was his attitude of public questioning. That was the attitude under which more than one sneaking cattle thief had wilted.
“The only place they was to go.”
“That ain't answering me. Where'd you go?”
“And you asked for Jess Dreer?”
“I ain't fool enough for that.”
His father put in: “The boy has some sense, Sheriff.”
“Shut up,” said Claney, “I'm doing this! Well, who did you see?”
“Looked over the bartenders and picked out the wisest-looking gent of the bunch. Then I stood off by myself at the bar and fooled with my drink till he seen I was waiting for something. Finally I got him over to one side—”
“And asked him where Dreer was?”
“Nope, I asked him where they was a game going on.”
“Shut up!” cried Claney savagely. “What did he say?”
“That if I went down the hall I'd find a game—I could hear the boys talking.”
“That I wanted to find a game that wouldn't make so much noise. Then he loosened up and asked me what I wanted. I told him I wanted to find a gent that looked like Dreer, and I told him what Dreer looked like.”
“And then he looked me over for a minute and finally he made up his mind I was on the inside and he told me all about it. Dreer had been there playing a game pretty steady. But the day before he hit the trail.”
“I dunno, and the barkeep didn't know.”
The sheriff gritted his teeth. “Then—we're done! The whole game's off, and Carrol is in five thousand!”
“Take him the letter,” said Gus Norman, “and make him give back the coin.”
“Couldn't be worked—but I'll try. Let's have the letter, Joe.”
“Why—I—burned the letter, Sheriff.”
“You what?” interrogated the sheriff angrily.
“Was I going to keep packing around a letter to an outlaw that'd be about enough to hang me, after the letter wasn't no good any more?”
The sheriff settled back in his chair.
Gus Norman was about to explode, but the raised hand of Clancy stopped him.
And he fought the critical eye of the sheriff. Claney began to smile.
“Joe,” he said, “you've done noble—but not noble enough. You been lying!”
“Don't stand up. Don't pretend to get mad. You changed color the minute I mentioned the letter, son, and I seen it. Talk turkey, now. What happened between you and Dreer?”
Gus Norman cursed and exclaimed. “He's been bought off! I'll—”
“You'll forgive him if he tells us the straight of it. Now talk, Joe. You're among friends. But if you double-cross us, we'll make it hot for you.”
“It'll be the last day he spends under my roof,” declared Gus Norman fiercely.
“Steady, Gus. Here, Joe. Have a drink. That'll help you.”
The nerve of Joe Norman had remained steady up to this point. The offer of the drink—the tacit assumption of friendly superiority, crumpled his powers of resistance. And all in a minute the lies of the interview were torn to pieces and thrown away. The truth was blurted from his lips, and the trap from which he had tried to free Jess Dreer was set and cocked by his own hand.
