As he entered the bunkhouse the measured breaths from each bed were those of placidly sleeping men and he undressed in the dark so as not to disturb them. A single ray of moonlight lay across the room, hitting squarely the peg in the post above Red's bunk. It lit up the two revolvers hanging in their scabbards and Douglass smiled almost affectionately in the direction of their owner. When Red "packed" that extra gun he was enlisted for the whole war.
He went over and looked down kindly upon the stalwart sleeper. In the relaxation of sleep the stern face was gentle and almost handsome. Was he justified in taking this comely young fellow into the grim uncertainty that lay ahead, into the jaws of the specter grinning waitingly behind the red lights of Bart Coogan's gambling hell at Gunnison? As he hesitatingly debated the question in his mind, Red turned slightly and mumbled in his sleep: "All right, honey—for yuah sake—"
Douglass, stepping back involuntarily, laid his hand upon the breast of the shirt hanging under the guns; it encountered something round in the flannel pocket, and instantly his face hardened. He went over to his own bunk and laid down.
"You've got to sit in the game, Red, for her sake. We are in the same boat and we've got to take our medicine. I wonder if she told old Abbie about that ribbon, too. Well, maybe we'll give her something more to laugh at before we are through." Then youth and healthful fatigue asserted itself and he rolled over and went to sleep.
CHAPTER XI
FRENZIED FINANCE
Outside of a fixed determination to compel the restoration of the stolen cattle, Douglass had no specific plans in mind as they rode away in the gray dawn. His actions would be determined by the conditions that would confront him at Gunnison, and he left much to what he deemed his luck, but which in reality was rather his great capability and aptitude in moments of crisis.
Of course, he would incidentally kill Matlock if justifying circumstances permitted, but he was not a killer in cold blood and the provocation would have to be amply sufficient. He resolved to let Matlock make the first hostile demonstration, after which matters were a thing of evolution purely; of the ultimate result he had not the slightest apprehension.
Every fiber of him was tingling with resentment of what he deemed Grace's duplicity; she had begged for his friendship and then had maliciously exposed him to ridicule by showing that foolish poem to Abbie, and the Lord only knew who else besides. She had made of him a laughing stock of the whole community, a butt for the coarse witticisms of his fellows, and the deeply-driven barb in his vanity rankled sore. Of course, he opined, she had only been making a fool of Red, too, but despite the old time-honored saw about misery loving company, he took small comfort in the thought, being rather disposed to harsher judgment of her for so unscrupulously playing upon that ignorant cowpuncher's fatuous credulity. Red knew nothing of fine ladies and their heartless machinations and it was a shame to encourage him in his hopeless folly. No lady would take such cruel advantage of puerile innocence! It is possibly apparent to the reader by this time that Mr. Douglass was somewhat of an egotist, whose personal estimation of himself bulked large in his stock in trade. If it be true that a man's vanity is the real unit of the measure of his possibilities, then Ken Douglass, scaled by the miles of his self-containment, might logically have aspired beyond the stars. Not that he underestimated other men in the slightest; he was quick to recognize and commend courage, fortitude, honesty and skill in his compeers; indeed, he heartily despised anyone in whom these primal qualities were not ingrained; but the ego was first in his cosmos and when a man humbly urges that he is the equal of all other men it may be set down as an axiom that he really thinks himself immeasurably their superior. Now the world always accepts a man at his own valuation in absence of evidence to the contrary, and he had vindicated his position so far as his range work went; he was concededly the best rider, roper, pistol shot and poker player in his circumscribed little world, and had, besides, the enviable reputation of never "falling down" in anything he essayed. In the flush of his present successes he entirely overlooked his previous grievous failures, as is man's wont the world over; the world was his own succulent oyster, and he, himself, the proper blade for its opening. Therefore he arrogantly pitied Red's unsophistication; at which the gods laughed.