The bitterness in Taggart's soul overspilled into his voice as he cried out savagely:
"Sure, there you are! That's the way it goes. Now that your luck's been running high and you don't need me, now that my luck's been dragging bottom, why then you're ready to pitch me over...."
"Liar!" Timber-Wolf cut him short with the word which was like an explosion. But he did not pause to discuss a point of view, but continued immediately: "That's the first thing. Here's the second: You've decided to run neck and neck with Young Gallup. So you can take him a word from me. Tell him"—and Standing's voice, husky with his emotions, made even Jim Taggart wonder what was coming—"that I came into his skunk hole of a town to-night just because he had the nerve to tell me not to. Tell him that I know that was his work that my horse was killed just now. Tell it him that if I ever come into his skunk hole once more in my life, it will be to pull his damned town down about his ears."
Taggart chose to break into contemptuous laughter. But Bruce Standing, lost to all sense of his own pain, caught him angrily by the shoulder and shouted into his ears:
"And this, for the last word ever to be spoken between you and me, Jim Taggart. That rake-hell Jezebel that shot me, shot me and not you! Got that? I'm not asking you, sheriff or no sheriff, to chip in on my affairs; I'll attend to the little hell-cat, and you keep your hands off. And, as for Babe Deveril, since the cursed fool wants to show his hand by cutting in with her and trying to snatch her out of my reach, I'll attend to him at the same time. The likely thing is that they've headed into the wilderness, my wilderness, and I'm going after them. And you are to keep out of my way."
With a violent shove he thrust Taggart out of his way and strode by him, going swiftly down the hall, Dick Ross swinging along close behind him and keeping a watchful eye upon Taggart, little Billy Winch hopping along in the rear and spitting audacious venom at the sheriff with his baneful eyes. In this order the three came out under the shining stars.
CHAPTER VI
Bruce Standing, a man of that strong, dominant, and self-centred character which is prone to disregard the feelings of others, held both Lynette Brooke and Babe Deveril his prey. But Jim Taggart, whose professional business it appeared to be to bring in the girl, and whose sore and aching head would not for many a day lose record of the fact that it had been Babe Deveril who had forcibly put him out of the running, had his own human purposes to serve, and set his nose to the trail like a bloodhound. And yet, with these two bending every energy to run them to earth, the two fugitives plunging headlong into the friendly darkness were for the moment utterly lost to those who plunged into the same darkness and in the same headlong style after them.