CHAPTER XII
THE FIRST SHOT
Alexander Bancroft sat in his private room with Curtis Conrad’s return checks before him. They were not many: one in favor of his brother at the University of Michigan, one for a mail order house in Chicago, a small one to a New York publishing concern,—and his eyes fell upon the name of Rutherford Jenkins and the amount,—five hundred dollars. He stared at the slip of paper for a moment, conviction rushing to his mind that his pursuer knew the truth; then he took his revolver from his pocket and examined its chambers. “I may have to do him up myself!” he thought, his lips tightening. But sudden hesitation gripped his heart. Until within a few weeks he had considered Curtis one of his best friends, had liked the young cattleman whole-heartedly, admiring and enjoying his impulsiveness, his geniality, his ardent loyalty to his friends, and his equally ardent hostility to those he disliked. Now the good-fellowship he had been accustomed to feel stopped his hand. “Can it be possible,” he asked himself for the hundredth time, “that this eager-hearted, companionable fellow will really carry out his deadly purpose?” He recalled the intensity with which Conrad had spoken of his long quest for revenge, his vehemence toward his enemies, his impetuosity. Again conviction grew strong upon him that, when the man knew, the end would come. The frontier code by which he had lived so long nerved his heart, and he muttered, “He shan’t smash things—now! I’ll smash him before I’ll let him do that!”
He swung the revolver into position and took sight. As his eye glanced down the barrel he saw that it was pointing at Lucy’s pictured face, smiling down from the top of his desk; his hand shook as he laid down the weapon. There was a knock at the door, and he made sudden pretence of close attention to the papers before him. The door partly opened and he heard Conrad’s voice outside. Surety of imminent peril seized Bancroft’s mind. The instinct of self-defence sent his hand to his revolver, and he sprang up, pulling the trigger. Curtis rushed in at the report, calling out, “What’s the matter, Aleck?” The banker had just time to stay his finger at sight of the friendly face and solicitous manner.
“I didn’t hurt you, did I, Curt?” he asked anxiously, sinking back in his chair and looking at Conrad’s arm, helpless in a sling. The bullet, they found, had nicked the top of the door and buried itself in the ceiling. “I was looking my revolver over when you knocked,” Bancroft explained, “and had just been aiming at that spot on the wall. My finger must have pulled the trigger unconsciously. The thing’s set to a hair, anyway. I must have it fixed. What’s the matter with your arm, Curt?”
In the revulsion of feeling that swept over him as he realized that the cattleman was as friendly as ever and that therefore his secret was still safe, he felt genuinely thankful that his bullet had gone wild.
Conrad told of his fight with José Gonzalez. “You’re getting the truth about it, Aleck,” he went on; “but to everybody else I’m saying that I got horned by a steer, knocked over, and my collar bone cracked. I’m convinced it’s some of Dell Baxter’s work. I reckon I’ve been saying out loud just what he is too often to please him. But the letter I’ve sent him will buffalo him quick enough. José’s a good cowboy, and I’m going to keep him. But I don’t want the boys to know anything about our little scrap. So I’m saying it was a steer on the prod that did it.”
Bancroft’s thoughts were active as he lighted his cigar. That check—it must have been Castleton money, to be handled for Johnny Martinez. Perhaps security might still be compassed without bloodshed. In thankfulness that he had not killed the man who was still his friend he revolted against the purpose of the Mexican, to which he knew in his soul he had given tacit consent. He did not want this cordial, confiding, good fellow struck down—if his own safety could be otherwise secured.