"Tenderfoot," he opined, "takin' in the sights. Maybe he'll see suthin' worth while if he hangs around a bit longer." And he smiled grimly and renewed his watch of the doors.
Less than a year before, Matlock had an altercation with a sheep herder over a game of cards in this very room and had been soundly thrashed by the unarmed man. The next night the shepherd's camp had been raided by a masked mob, his sheep ruthlessly slaughtered, despite the fact that he was on the right side of the "dead line," therefore entirely within his rights, and himself shot to death by the merciless marauders. Of course there was no positive proof of their identity, but the consensus of opinion pointed to the C Bar outfit, and the decent element among the range men had held significantly aloof from Matlock ever since. Douglass's escapade had in nowise affected his popularity among the resentful cattle owners who had been seriously involved by the outrage on the sheepman; the law of the range demands fair play and the feeling against Matlock was further intensified by a dastardly trick perpetrated by him a few days before Douglass's unceremonious man-handling of him.
Among the men working for the C Bar had been a quiet inoffensive German named Braun, whose ambition was to acquire a small ranch of his own. With this end in view he had allowed salary to accumulate in Matlock's hands until it had attained very respectable proportions. Upon this little hoard Matlock had long had designs, and one night he seduced Braun—who was a mere boy—into a game of cards where with the assistance of one of his confederate creatures he had deliberately robbed him of every cent. This in itself would have aroused but little comment; every man must protect himself in card play and any means that can be enforced to one's end in poker are admissible. But with the malicious brutality characteristic of all cowardly bullies, Matlock had subsequently taunted his victim with his lack of perspicuity, boasting openly of the means he had employed, until the boy, lashed into ungovernable fury, had fumblingly drawn his revolver, whereupon Matlock shot him through the head.
In the light of self-defense even this would have been condoned, but one of the dead man's friends, collecting his effects for transmission to his widowed mother, had discovered that Braun's revolver had been rendered absolutely useless by having its hammer point shortened in such a way that it could not reach the primers of the cartridges, the weapon being therefore undischargeable. It was evident that the point had been first broken off and the fracture cunningly ground smoothly round so as to avoid detection. And it was whispered significantly among the C Bar boys that Braun's gun had hung for the better-part of a day in the ranch blacksmith shop while he was employed on a distant irrigation ditch, and that Matlock had been refurbishing some branding Irons in the smithy during the interim. And one of the boys who had been friendly with the dead man found on the edge of the grindstone a deeply-cut indentation such as is made by the bite of casehardened steel.
It was now ten o'clock and Matlock had not put in his appearance; the smoke-dimmed atmosphere was heavy with expectancy but Douglass sat unconcernedly rolling cigarettes, occasionally making a bet and exchanging the rude badinage inseparable from the game. His face was sphinx-like in its immobility but the cold lethality of his eyes was apparent even to the inexperienced tenderfoot, who was growing strangely uncomfortable for some indefinable reason. The raucous clamor of the preceding hours had become unaccountably subdued and the soft flutter of the cards as they were dealt was distinctly heard. A sudden gust of wind slammed the insecurely fastened door with a sharp bang and a man sprang quickly behind the precarious shelter of the stove; even Williams stiffened perceptibly in his chair. The C Bar men had their hands on the butts of their revolvers. The gray-eyed man alone smiled contemptuously at the disconcerted fellow grinning behind the stove and said humorously:
"Better take a little bromide, Jim. This night air is hell on the nerves."
The tenderfoot was wavering between a conviction that it was time to go home and a morbid inclination to stay and see what all this portended. Impelled by an irresistible impulse, he went over and sat down beside Douglass, who courteously shoved back the chair for his better convenience. It was the one just vacated by the man behind the stove.
Then of a sudden it happened. In through the door walked Matlock, his bloated face working ominously and an evil glitter in his closely-set eyes. The player opposite Douglass, immediately between him and the newcomer, rose with exaggerated deliberation and strolled over to the counter, asking for a match. There was a perfect litter of matches on the table about the very respectable heap of chips and coin which he had accumulated but these were curiously overlooked, and what was even more remarkable, he displayed no unseemly celeritude in returning to what was plainly a very profitable divertisement.
Then the tenderfoot, comprehending, was obsessed by a great desire to go somewhere and he moved nervously in his chair. The hand of the man beside him had dropped carelessly to his side and involuntarily he shifted his chair a little farther away. He wished now that he had gone home. But the pride inherent in every man worthy of the name chained him to his seat. He paled perceptibly, but Williams, watching him cynically out of the corner of his eye, gave a grin of appreciative surprise at the resolute squaring of his jaw and firm compression of lips.
"Blamed if the kid isn't game!" he ejaculated under his breath. "But all the same, if I was him I'd mosey off a leetle to one side—and that muy pronto. The work's apt to be a bit wild in all this yere durned smoke."