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was to accompany her father to Tinkersville, had written her suggesting she
come on and join him. The letter had been sufficiently ambiguous to imply a
lot of things, and his intentions seemed serious.
Not long after her arrival she discovered his intentions were serious enough,
but not exactly what she had expected. She had to admit they had not been
entirely unsuspected, either.
Yet a climax had been postponed, due to the sudden turn of events for Jud
Devitt. Colleen had arrived with her father and the Deep Creek timber had not
fallen easily into his hands.
In the meantime, Randy had seen Bill Coffin, just as he had seen her.
Randy made discreet inquiries of Kesterson as to who Bill Coffin was, and
Kesterson, dryly but not without understanding, had told her. And the
storekeeper, of whom no one suspected a sense of humor, was fully aware of
Bill's weakness for jokes, and appreciated them. So the report on Bill Coffin
had not been lacking in color.
Later, when Bill met Randy, he proceeded to give even more glowing and
picturesque accounts of himself, and, coupled with wavy hair and an engaging
grin, they had their effect.
Randy Ashton was a girl who looked as if bom to a dance hall, but she was a
girl whose heart only beat in tune to cotton print and kitchens. She had grown
up with cowhands, and Bill Coffin was a cowhand.
Jilted by his fiancee, at least temporarily, Jud Devitt remembered the
blonde. He beat a path to her door and was received politely, but his
suggestions fell upon ears apparently deaf. A more direct suggestion met with
a quiet refusal and the pointed implication that he would find the air
agreeable.
This unexpected stubbornness where he had expected compliance had been the
final straw. He burst out into the night only to see Bill Coffin dismounting.
Their brief encounter had sent him away a poor second, and he could imagine
them laughing at him. As a matter of fact, neither had given him another
thought.
It was late when Bill Coffin left Randy. He stepped into the saddle and rode
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slowly down the street. Shorty was around town. They had best get together and
start back for the ranch.
Drawing up before the Homestake, Coffin leaned forward and peered into the
window. There was no sign of Shorty. The place was crowded with lumberjacks.
Nor was there a B-Bar horse tied at Doc McClean's.
Coffin swung down and checked with the doctor. Garry was restless and had a
bad fever. It was better not to disturb him. Shorty Jones had come and gone
hours ago. So had Clay.
Stepping back into the saddle, Bill Coffin soft-footed his horse down the
street, keeping to the shadows. Clay Bell was in town, and that meant that
Rooney was alone at Emigrant Gap! Unless Shorty had started back, and Bill
doubted that Shorty would go back without him.
A lumberjack came from the stable leading several teams. He walked with them
to the watering trough. Bill Coffin, suddenly alert, waited in the shadows.
More lumberjacks came from the stable, all carrying rifles. Other men were
already gathering around three wagons.
Bill turned his horse. No time to look for Shorty now. He walked his horse
down an alleyway, eased around the livery stable corral, and rode between two
haystacks and into the cottonwoods along the creek. The night was cool and
there was a faint smell of woodsmoke. He reached the desert and started his
horse on a lope for the Gap. Then, changing his mind suddenly, he turned his
horse and started across the desert toward Piety Mountain. The cool wind
fanned his cheeks and he rode swiftly, holding his horse to a steady pace,
weaving among clumps of grease-wood and racing by the looming shadows of
mesquite. The trail up Piety was heavy going.
Stacked high on Piety was the dry wood of the signal fire that would bring in
the guards and the men riding with the cattle. With Rooney, Rush Jackson, and
Montana Brown He chuckled. They could come! They could come and stand ten deep
all across the Pass!
A half-hour later, even as the rumbling wagons rolled out of town, he was
dropping to his knees beside the stack of wood. He brushed dried leaves
together, a bit more dry grass, then placed a lighted match. Flame caught and
curled, smoke lifted, then the tongues of the flame lapped at the dry
branches, twisting hungrily about the cedar and the pine. They leaped, caught,
crackled. . .
The late stage rumbled to a stop at the stage station and Stag Harvey,
loafing on the street with two belted guns, watched a big, loose-jointed man
in a rumpled suit get down from the stage carrying a worn leather traveling
bag.
"How are you, Stag? Clay around?"
"Down to the hotel, I think."
"You might as well light a shuck, Stag. The war's over. At least, it will be
when I talk to Judge Riley."
"Maybe." Stag smiled past his cigarette. "That'll be no good news for Jack
an' me. We need money."
Tibbott started on, then caught by a sudden thought, he stopped abruptly.
"Stag, never knew you to wear two guns unless you were working."
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Stag Harvey straightened from the post. "You can tell Clay that, Tibbott.
Tell him I'm workin'. Both Jack an' me."
"Don't do it, Stag."
"You tell him."
"Stag, he don't wear that gun for show. He's no pilgrim."
"Didn't figure so."
Hardy Tibbott walked on, more swiftly now. It was good to be back, but he did
not like to think of that man standing back there by the stage station. With
either Kilburn or Harvey, Bell might have a chance, but with both? Ed Miller
looked up as the tired man dropped his bag. "Hey! Bell's been askin' for you,
almost every day. He was beginning to believe you were dead."
"Dead tired, is all."
He looked around at Sam Tinker. "Stag Harvey's wearing both guns."
"The hell you say!"
"Saw some wagons leaving for the Gap, too." Sam Tinker turned on his chair.
"Ed, you get up those stairs and tell Clay! Quick now!"
The door shoved open and Shorty Jones came in. His barrel chest spread the
wool shirt taut over its muscles. He looked quickly around the room, then at
Tibbott. "The boss will be glad to see you."
"Who's at the ranch, Shorty?"
"Rooney. Coffin came in with me."
"Coffin's gone back." The speaker was a tall, lazy-looking man. "Shuttin' my
hen house when I saw him ease down the alley and then go hell a-whoopin' into
the desert."
Stag Harvey pushed open the door and came in, glancing around as if to check
those present. His eyes went to Jones. There was no love lost between the two,
but Stag jerked his head toward the Gap.
"Looks like a fire on Piety. Can't see the fire, but there's a reflection."
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