Lancing

“ Then he looked up more keenly than before. "How'll they know that it was luck—that my gun stuck in the holster—and that you jumped me on the draw?"
"You lie," said Andrew calmly. "Your gun came out clean as a whistle, and I waited for you, Dozier. You know I did."
The pain in the marshal's face became a ghastly thing to see. At last he could speak.
"A sneak always lies well," he replied, as he sneered at Lanning. ”

“ Six riders came through the trees, rushing their horses, and John Merchant saw Bill Dozier's well-known, lanky form in the lead. He brought his horse from a dead run to a halt in the space of a single jump and a slide. The next moment he was demanding fresh mounts.
"Can you give 'em to me, Merchant? But what's all this?"
"You make your little talk," said Merchant, "and then I'll make mine."
"I'm after Andy Lanning. He's left a gent more dead than alive back in Martindale, and I want him. Can you give me fresh horses for me and my boys, Merchant?" ”

“ At once a roar went up from every throat in the saloon: "There's your man. Go to him!" Buck Heath turned from his horse; Andrew lifted his head. They were face to face, and it was hard to tell to which one of them the other was the least welcome. But Andrew spoke first. A thick silence had fallen in the saloon. Most of the onlookers wore careless smiles, for the caliber of these two was known, and no one expected violence; but Jasper Lanning, at the door, stood with a sick face. ”

“ Well, Lanning, I'll take that risk. I know he's more devil than man when it comes to gun play, but we'll meet him together. Give me your hand!"
There was a riot in the brain of Andrew Lanning. The words of the outlaw had struck something in him that was like metal chiming on metal. Iron dust? That was it! The call of one blood to another, and he realized the truth of what Allister said. If he touched the hand of this man, there would be a bond between them which only death could break. In one blinding rush he sensed the strength and the faith of Allister. ”

“ He finished this rush of shouted words with his [Pg 109] familiar old cowboy yell, as if to defy the rush of the flood and the fury of the summer storm.
If they attained their goal and managed to get out of reach of the avalanche of water, it would be by the skin of their teeth. Lanky could not have uttered a word just then, no matter how desperately he tried, for his lips felt as dry as those of a fever-stricken mule-skinner in a caravan, and his breath was coming in pants, as of a hound that had run a long race in chase of a hare. ”

“ BESIDE the rear window of the blacksmith shop Jasper Lanning held his withered arms folded against his chest. With the dispassionate eye and the aching heart of an artist he said to himself that his life work was a failure. That life work was the young fellow who swung the sledge at the forge, and truly it was a strange product for this seventy-year-old veteran with his slant Oriental eyes and his narrow beard of white. Andrew Lanning was not even his son, but it came about in this way that Andrew became the life work of Jasper. ”

“ Lanning, with men like you—and like myself, I hope—there's no question of distance. It's either a miss or a hit. Here's a better proposition: Let me put my belt on again. Then put your own gun back in the holster. We'll turn and face the wall. ”

“ A little puff of alkali dust attested the movement.
"I'll tell you," roared Buck, "you ain't fittin' for a man's hand to touch, you ain't. A hosswhip is more your style."
From the pommel of his saddle he snatched his quirt. It whirled, hummed in the air, and then cracked on the shoulders of Andrew. In the dimness of the saloon door a gun flashed in the hand of Jasper Lanning. It was a swift draw, but he was not in time to shoot, for Andy, with a cry, ducked in under the whip as it raised for the second blow and grappled with Buck Heath. ”

“ Lanky made all sorts of encouraging sounds with his lips, and also jerked the lines in the endeavor to encourage the horse to start into a run.
"What ails the beast?" he grumbled, as his labor seemed next door to wasted, for the horse would only start upon a slow moving run, that seemed like a snail's pace to the anxious lad.
"The poor beast is dead tired, that's the truth. Those scamps must have driven him a long way around, trying to escape. And I guess they were using the whip on him when we bounced out on them," remarked Frank. ”

“ You do the talking then, Lanky!" exclaimed Frank, suddenly, as a buggy drawn by a seemingly tired horse came out of the gathering gloom.
Both boys immediately stepped forward. To their surprise the driver instantly drew in his horse as though the apparition of those two figures had given him a complete fright.
Lanky saw one of the men in the vehicle half rise in his seat, and make a vicious cut at him with the whip he held.
"Here, quit that, you!" shouted the astonished boy, as he ducked his head in time to avoid being struck by the whistling lash; "we only want you——"
"HERE, QUIT THAT, YOU!" ”

“ Lancaster’s trap, long lost in the myriad turns of the Lane, had emerged into the open road, and the horse’s hoofs, quickened to a sharp trot, rang from hill to hill. There are things to be read from a hoof-beat in the country quiet. Up in the Dales, when a man gallops, the farmers come to their doors, knowing he rides for succour. Lanty’s trot spelt urgency, and more than one voice hailed him as he passed. ”

“ Who should be in the smack but Solby, the canting Baptist, who was no friend to you, or my uncle, or any of us. You had no time for bargaining or coaxing, and so, at the musket's mouth, you drove him from the boat, and pushed it out just as Lancy and his [Pg 72] men came riding up. Your sail was up, and you turned the lugger to the wind in as little time as could be, but the coastguardsmen rode after you, calling you to give in. No man will ever know the bitter trouble in Lancy's heart when he gave the order to fire on you, though he did not fire himself. ”

“ He was cut out to be a man-killer. You say you want to get away: Lanning, you can't do it. Because you can't get away from yourself. I'm making a long talk to you, but you're worth it. I tell you I read your mind. You plan on riding north and getting out of the mountain desert before the countryside there is raised against you, the way it's raised to the south. In the first place, I don't think you'll get away. Hal Dozier is on your trail, and he'll get to the north and raise the whole district and stop you before you hit the towns. You'll have to go back to the mountain desert. ”

“ So I swung out of my road and came straight to this house. I came up the stairs. I went into a room down the hall and made a man tell me where to find you."
There was a flash in the eyes of the girl like the wink of sun on a bit of quartz on a far-away hillside, but it cut into the speech of Andrew Lanning. "He told you where to find me?" she asked in a voice no louder than the swift, low voice of Andy. But what a world of meaning! What a rush and outpour of contempt and scorn!
"He had a gun shoved into the hollow of his throat," said Andy. ”

“ Now Lanky's managed to get his leg free, and is coming back to camp, carrying the rope and the antelope hide. His little game worked all to the good, but took a turn he didn't count on. See him limp, will you? That left leg feels sore, I bet you!"
"I reckon it serves him about right, as his dad will tell him," observed Frank. "Of all the fool tricks I've ever known that boy to try out, this wanting to lasso a live vulture takes the cake! Most people wouldn't want to touch the horrible things with a ten-foot pole." ”

“ The hunger for the man hunt is like the hunger for food, and Bill Dozier had been starved for many a day. When he stood before the saloon, with his arms held above his head like the rest of the crowd, he had sensed many possibilities in young Lanning, and he was more and more determined as the trail wore on to develop the chances to the uttermost. ”

“ Lanky, you ought not to let these boys keep you up so late. They’d talk you to death if you’d jest set here and listen to ’em.”
[Pg 68] THE GENESIS OF PECOS BILL
“I suppose,” said Lanky, as he sat by the camp-fire with Red and Hank and Joe, now his fast friends, “that the cowboy’s life is about the most interesting one there is. I’d like it. Live outdoors, plenty of fresh air to breathe, interesting work—that’s the life.” ”

“ In addition he had more than his share of an ability which all the members of the gang possessed—an infinite cunning in the use of weapons and a star-storming courage and self-confidence.
"And where," said Andrew at the end of this long recital, "do I fit in?"
"You begin," said Allister, "as the least valuable of my men; before six months you will be worth the whole set of 'em. You'll start as my lieutenant, Lanning. The boys expect it. You've built up a reputation that counts. They admit your superiority without question. ”

“ But it was the sort of fear which makes a man want to fling himself from a great height. But, sitting there calmly in the saddle, he saw a strange thing—the five men raising their dead leader and turning back toward the direction from which they had come. Not once did they look toward the form of Andy Lanning. They knew what he could not know, that the gate of the law had been open to this man as a retreat, but the bullet which struck down Bill Dozier had closed the gate and thrust him out from mercy. ”

“ And once, when this one looked up and casually encountered Lanyard's gaze, the adventurer was shocked to find himself staring into eyes like those of a dead man: eyes of a grey so light that at a little distance the colour of the irises blended indistinguishably with their whites, leaving visible only the round black points of pupils abnormally distended and staring, blank, fixed, passionless, beneath lashless lids. ”

“ Sometimes, as the ravine narrowed, the close walls made the creaking of the saddle leather loud in his ears, and the puffing of pinto, who hated work; sometimes the hoofs scuffed noisily through gravel; but usually the soft sand muffled the noise of hoofs, and there was a silence as dense as the night around Andy Lanning.
Thinking back, he felt that it was all absurd and dream-like. He had never hurt a man before in his life. Martindale knew it Why could he not go back, face them, give up his gun, wait for the law to speak? ”

“ Either the murk deceived or Lanyard had judged shrewdly. His feet were on an approximate level with the coping round the roof, and he stood about as far from the upper girder to which the rope was hitched as that was distant from the coping.
One look up and round at those louring skies, duskily flushed by subdued city lights: with no more ceremony Lanyard released the upright and committed his body to space.
If the downward sweep was breathless, what followed was breath-taking: once past the nadir of that giant swing, he was borne upward by an impetus steadily and sensibly slackening. ”

“ He found his short, bow-legged friend in the barroom in the midst of excited talk with a big, blond man. He looked a German, with his parted beard and his imposing front and he had the stern blue eye of a fighter. "Is this your friend?" asked Andrew, and walked straight up to them. He watched the eyes of the big man expand and then narrow; his hand even fumbled, at his hip, but then he shook his head. He was too bewildered to act.
"I was just telling Mike," said the short man, "that you told me yourself folks think you're a ringer for Lanning. ”

“ When the lads peeped cautiously in through the opening which a rotten door, hanging by its last rusty hinge, faded to shut entirely, it was indeed a sight worth impressing on their minds.
"Gee whiz!" barked Lanky, his eyes opening unusually wide. "See the ugly things dangling there from every rafter, will you?"
"Is that the way bats sleep, hanging by their toes with their heads downward?" exclaimed Paul, intensely interested. "What strange things you often see when you haven't got a gun. ”

“ Lane dropped his oars. He saw men below wading knee-deep in the water. The boat rode the incline, down to the long swell and curled yellow billows below, where it was checked with violent shock. Lane felt himself propelled as if into darkness.
When Lane opened his eyes he recognized as through a veil the little parlor of the Idens. All about him seemed dim and far away. Faces and voices were there, indistinguishable. A dark cloud settled over his eyes. He dreamed but could not understand the dreams. The black veil came and went.
What was the meaning of the numbness of his body? ”

“ It was all in her smile and the turning of her eyes, which were very wide open. She spoke, and it was in the sound of her voice.
"Wait!" shouted Andy Lanning as he made a step toward them. But the car went on, rocking over the bumps and the exhaust roaring. Andy became aware that his shout had been only a dry whisper. Besides, what would he say if they did stop? And then the girl turned sharply about and looked back, not at the horse they had so nearly struck, but at Andy standing in the door of his shop. It seemed to him that that glance entered his eyes and reached his soul ”

“ Besides, the five thousand isn't all. There's at least one rich gent that'll contribute maybe that much more. And you'd get a good half of that. You see, Hal Dozier knows all that, and he knows there's hardly a man in the mountains who would be able to keep away from selling me. So that's why he won't search the houses."
"Not you," corrected the trapper sharply. "Andy Lanning is the man Dozier wants."
"Well, Andrew Lanning, then," smiled the guest. "It was just a slip of the tongue."
"Sometimes slips like that break a man's neck," observed the trapper, and he fell into a gloomy meditation. ”