“No, sir. You don’t move a step of the way, not a step, Mr. Alan McKinstra. I’ve got him right where I want him, and I don’t care if you talk till the cows come home.”
Alan’s voice rang out indignantly, “It’s murder then—just plain, low-down murder. If you hold me here and let Morse fall into a death trap without 176 warning him, you’re as responsible as if you shot him yourself.”
“All right. Suits me down to the ground. We’ll let it go at that. I’m responsible. If you want the truth flat and plain, I don’t mind telling you that I wouldn’t be satisfied if I wasn’t responsible. I’m evening up some little things with Mr. Morse to-day.”
Melissy needed to hear no more to understand the situation, but if she had, the next words of Boone would have cleared it up.
“When I met up with you and happened on the news that you was taking a message to Farnum, and when I got onto the fact that Morse, as you call him, was moving his sheep across the dead line, relying on you having got his letter to the cattlemen to make it safe, it seemed luck too good to be true. All I had to do was to persuade you to stay right here with me, and Mr. Morse would walk into the pass and be wiped out. You get the beauty of it, my friend, don’t you? I’m responsible, but it will be Farnum and his friends that will bear the blame. There ain’t but one flaw in the whole thing: Morse will never know that it’s me that killed him.”
“You devil!” cried the boy, with impotent passion.
“I’ve waited ten years for this day, and it’s come at last. Don’t you think for a moment I’m going to weaken. No, sir! You’ll sit there with my 177 gun poked in your face just as you’ve sat for six hours. It’s my say-so to-day, sir,” Boone retorted, malevolence riding triumph in his voice.
Melissy’s first impulse was to confront the man, her next to slip away without being discovered and then give the alarm.
“Yes, sir,” continued the cowpuncher; “I scored on Mr. Morse two or three nights ago, when I played hell with one of his sheep camps, and to-day I finish up with him. His sheep have been watched for weeks, and at the first move it’s all up with him and them. Farnum’s vaqueros will pay my debt in full. Just as soon as I’m right sure of it I’ll be jogging along to Dead Man’s Cache, and you can go order the coffin for your boss.”
The venom of the man was something to wonder at. It filled the listening girl with sick apprehension. She had not known that such hatred could live in the world.