The Seventh Man [33]
"I'd like to stay and chin with you, Buck--but, I got to be off. Out there--in the night--something may happen before mornin'." Black Bart licked the hand of the master and whined. "Easy, boy. We're startin'."
"But the night's just beginnin'," said Buck Daniels genially. "You got a world of time before you, and with Satan to fall back on you don't have to count your minutes. Pull up a chair beside me, Dan, and--"
The latter shook his head, decided. "Buck, I can't do it. Just to sit here"--he looked about him--"makes me feel sort of choked. Them walls are as close--as a coffin."
He was already turning; Kate straightened in the shadow, desperate.
"As a matter of fact, Dan," said Lee Haines, suddenly, "we need your help badly."
"Help?"
The heart of Kate stood in her eyes as she looked at Lee Haines.
"Sit down a minute, Dan, and I'll tell you about it."
Barry slipped into a chair which he had pulled to one side--so that the back of it was towards the wall, and every one in the room was before him.
Chapter XIV. Suspense
The help which Lee Haines wanted, it turned out, was guidance across a difficult stretch of country which he and Buck Daniels wanted to prospect, and while he talked Barry listened uneasily. It was constitutionally impossible for him to say no when a favor was asked of him, and Haines counted heavily on that characteristic; in the meantime Black Bart lay on the hearth with his wistful eyes turned steadily up to the master; and Buck Daniels went to Kate on the farther side of the room. She sat quivering, alternately crushing and soothing Joan with the strength of her caresses. Buck drew a chair close, with his back half towards the fire.
"Turn around a little, Kate," he cautioned. "Don't let Dan see your face."
She obeyed him automatically.
"Is there a hope, Buck? What have I done to deserve this? I don't want to live; I want to die! I want to die!"
"Steady, steady!" he cut in, and his face was working. "If you keep on like this you'll bust down in a minute or two. And you know what tears do to Dan; he'll be out of this house like a scairt coyote. Brace up!"
She struggled and won a partial control.
"I'm fighting hard, Buck."
"Fight harder still. You ought to know him better than I do. When he's like this it drives him wild to have other folks thinkin' about him."
He looked over to Dan. In spite of the bowed head of the latter as he listened to Haines yarning he gave an impression of electric awareness to all that was around him.
"Talk soft," whispered Buck. "Maybe he knows we're talkin' about him."
He raised his voice out of the whisper, breaking in on a sentence about Joan, as if this were the tenor of their talk. Then he lowered his tone again.
"Think quick. Talk soft. Do you want Dan kept here?"
"For God's sake, yes."
"Suppose the posse gets him here?"
"We musn't dodge the law."
They were gauging their voices with the closest precision. Talking like this so close to Barry was like dancing among flasks of nitroglycerine. Once, and once only, Lee Haines cast a desperate eye across to them, begging them to come to his rescue, then he went back to his talk with Dan, raising his voice to shelter the conference of the other two.
"If they come, he'll fight."
"No, he isn't at the fighting pitch yet, I know!"
"If you're wrong they'll be dead men here."
"He sees no difference between the death of a horse and the death of a man. He feels that the law has no score against him. He'll go quietly."
"And we'll find ways of fightin' the law?"
"Yes, but it needs money."
"I've got a stake."
"God bless you, Buck."
"Take my advice."
"What?"
"Let him go now."
She glanced at him wildly.
"Kate, he's gone already."
"No, no, no!"
"I say he's gone. Look at his eyes."
"I don't dare."
"The yaller is comin' up in 'em. He's wild again." She shook her head in mute agony. Buck Daniels groaned, softly.
"Then they's goin' to be a small-sized hell started around this cabin before mornin'."
He got up and went