The silence of the bush remained unbroken as the two men looked into each other’s faces. The gun did not belch forth its death-dealing pellet. It was simply there, leveled, to enforce its owner’s will. Its compelling presence was a power not easily to be defied in a country where, in those days, the surest law was carried in the holster on the hip. The man recovered and submitted. His hands, encased in mitts, had placed him at a woeful disadvantage.
Arizona saw this and lowered his gun, but his eyes never lost sight of the fur-clad hands before him. He straightened himself up in the saddle, refusing to display any of his weakness to this man.
“Guess I’ve waited fer you, ‘Tough’ McCulloch, fer nigh on a week,” he said slowly, in a thin, strident voice. “I’ve coaxed you some too, I guess. You wus hidden mighty tight, but not jest tight ’nuff. I ’lows I located you, an’ I wa’n’t goin’ to lose sight o’ you. When you quit Skitter Bend, like the whipped cur you wus, I wus right hot on your trail. An’ I ain’t never left it. See? Say, in all the hundreds o’ miles you’ve traveled sence you quit the creek ther’ ain’t bin a move as you’ve took I ain’t looked on at. I’ve trailed you, headed you, bin alongside you, an’ located wher’ you wus makin’, an’ come along an’ waited on you. Ther’s a score ’tween you an’ me as wants squarin’. I’m right here fer to squar’ that score.”
Arizona’s sombre face was unrelieved by any change of expression while he was speaking. There was no anger in his tone; just cold, calm purpose, and some contempt. And whatever feelings the half-breed may have had he seemed incapable of showing them, except in the sickly hue of his face.
The fascination of the message on the board still seemed to attract him, for, without heeding the other’s words, he glanced over at the seared tree-trunk and nodded at it.
“See. Dat ting. It your work. Hah?”
“Yes; an’ I take it the meanin’s clear to you. You’ve struck the trail we all stan’ on some time, pardner, an’ that trail is mostly called the ‘One-Way Trail.’ It’s a slick, broad trail, an’ one as is that smooth to the foot as you’re like to find anywheres. It’s so dead easy you can’t help goin’ on, an’ you on’y larn its cussedness when you kind o’ notion gittin’ back. I ’lows as one o’ them glacier things on top o’ yonder mountains is li’ble to be easier climbin’ nor turnin’ back on that trail. The bed o’ that trail is blood, blood that’s mostly shed in crime, an’ its surface is dusted wi’ all manner o’ wrong doin’s sech as you an’ me’s bin up to. Say, it ain’t a long trail, I’m guessin’, neither. It’s dead short, in fac’ the end comes sudden-like, an’ vi’lent. But I ’lows the end ain’t allus jest the same. Sometimes y’ll find a rope hangin’ in the air. Sometimes ther’s a knife jabbin’ around; sometimes ther’s a gun wi’ a light pull waitin’ handy, same as mine. But I figger all them things mean jest ’bout the same. It’s death, pardner; an’ it ain’t easy neither. Say, you an’ me’s pretty nigh that end. You ’special. Guess you’re goin’ to pass over fust. Mebbe I’ll pass over when I’m ready. It ain’t jest ne’sary fer the likes o’ us to yarn Gospel wi’ one another, but I’m goin’ to tell you somethin’ as mebbe you’re worritin’ over jest ’bout now. It’s ’bout a feller’s gal—his wife—which the same that feller never did you no harm. But fust y’ll put up them mitts o’ yours, I sees as they’re gettin’ oneasy, worritin’ around as though they’d a notion to git a grip on suthin’.”
The half-breed made no attempt to obey, but stared coldly into the lean face before him.
“Hands up!” roared Arizona, with such a dreadful change of tone that the man’s hands were thrust above his head as though a shot had struck him.
Arizona moved over to him and removed a heavy pistol from the man’s coat pocket, and then, having satisfied himself that he had no other weapons concealed about him, dropped back to his original position.