“I’m going now!”
There was no hand or voice raised at this. Turning his back on them for the first time, McMasters swung his belt to place, buckled it, caught his saddle horn and was mounted and away, not looking back. He rode gently, easily, straight. They knew no more of him now than they had before.
“Del! Del, call him back!” broke out Taisie Lockhart. But Del Williams shook his head. “I wish I could, Miss Taisie,” said he simply. “I don’t reckon any of us could now.”
“It had to be,” said Nabours after a time. “I’ll pay him back after we sell our herd. Del Sol can’t have no obligations to him now. But he’s one of the mysteriousest men ever crossed this range. He’s cold, that man. He needs watching.”
“Pay him back? What do you mean, Jim?” Taisie was still in open tears. But she got no reply from her foreman.
“He’s a killer, Jim,” broke in Cal Taney. “We know his ree-cord. He’s done killed five or six men a’ready, young as he is—four since he was sher’f and not countin’ Mexicans. He’s bad, that feller.”
“He never killed no man as sher’f that didn’t resist comin’ along,” ventured Del Williams. “Them two other men—one was coming at him with a ax, on the buffalo range, and t’other had a even break on the street o’ Uvalde. But no man has a chance with him on a even break.”
“He’s cold,” reiterated Nabours, hesitant. But he suddenly was agonized over the discharge of what he had held duty to his owner—the hardest duty he had ever known.
“Good thing fer us he was cold,” said Del Williams. “He’d never have went out alone if things had popped loose. He kep’ his mind and his hand to hisself. Why?”
But he knew why.