CHAPTER XXXVI
THE LOOT
In the heat of the threats and counterthreats which had been in progress, none of the occupants of the room had heard the newest arrival thunder up to the porch and leap from the saddle to the steps.
Eagen was dumfounded by Rathburn’s sudden appearance. He saw that the girl was standing now in a front corner of the room, with her hands crossed on her breast, a look of horror in her eyes. Slowly Eagen recovered and loosed his hold on Doane, who staggered weakly to the table and leaned upon it. Eagen’s sneer returned to his thick lips, and his narrowed gaze traveled quickly to a sack which Rathburn held in his left hand. Eagen’s eyes shone with fury.
“Come here to fix up the divvy!” he choked. “I knew it was a put-up job between you an’ Doane, an’ I figured you’d maybe meet aroun’ here where Doane would be sure to come to try an’ take this woman with him.”
Rathburn eyed him calmly. There was something of a deadly calm in his very posture, as he stood just within the threshold. He looked past Eagen to Doane. Then he tossed the sack on the table.
“Here’s the money I took this morning, Doane,” he said in matter-of-fact tones. “I came here to turn it over to you.”
With bulging eyes Doane stared at him.
Eagen laughed loudly. “That’s rich! Tryin’ to make me think you was goin’ to give it all to him? Don’t you figure, Mr. Coyote, that I can throw 243 my rope aroun’ a simple scheme like you an’ that shivering rat over by the table cooked up? That’s why you turned down my little proposition last night. It was this same deal––only, me, an’ Doane there was goin’ to put it over. You figured I’d cut you out of your divvy, an’ you figured right; he suspected I might double cross him, an’ maybe he was right, too. So he cooked it up with you to pull the robbery, thinkin’ you’d be more likely to go through an’ give him his end. But the pair of you figured too many points when you thought I wouldn’t catch on.”