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Page 17
"That is not like Jack Payson. What has come over you? It is
the shadow of your Thunder Bird. You know what my feeling was
for Dick Lane, and what it is, for it remains the same, the only
difference being that now I know it never was love. Even if it
were, he is dead, and I love you, Jack, you alone. Oh, how you
shame me by forcing me to speak of such things! I have tried to
put poor Dick out of my mind, for every time I think of him it is
with a wicked joy that he is dead, that he cannot come home to
claim me as his wife. Oh, Jack, Jack, I didn't think it of you!"
And the girl laid her face within her hands on her lover's knee
and burst into a fit of sobbing.
Jack Payson shut his teeth.
"Well, since I have lowered myself so far in your esteem, and
since your mind is already sinning against Dick Lane, we might as
well go on and settle this matter. I promise I will not mention
it again. I, too, have troubles of the mind. I am as I am, and
you ought to know it. I said I was jealous of Dick Lane's
memory. It is more. I am jealous of Dick Lane himself. If he
should return, would you leave me and go with him--as his wife?"
Again she sat upright. By a strong effort she controlled her
sobbing.
"The man I admired does not deserve an answer, but the child he
has proved himself to be and whom I cannot help loving, shall
have it. Yes, if Dick Lane returns true to his promise I shall
be true to mine."
She arose and went into the house. Payson rode homeward through
the starlight resolved of tormenting doubt only to be consumed by
torturing jealousy. He now had no thought of confiding in Jim
Allen. He regretted that he had touched so dangerously near the
subject of Dick Lane's return in talking to Bud and Polly. His
burning desire was to be safely married to Echo Allen before the
inevitable return of her former lover.
"Fool that I was not to ask her one more question: Would she
forgive her husband where she would not forgive her lover? What
will she think of me when all is discovered, as it surely will
be? Well, I must take my chances. Events will decide."
On his return to Sweetwater Ranch he put the place in charge of
his new foreman, Sage-brush Charlie, and went out to a
hunting-cabin he had built in the Tortilla Mountains. Here he
fought the problem over with his conscience--and his selfishness
won. He returned, fixed in his decision to suppress Dick Lane's
letter, and to go ahead with the marriage.
CHAPTER IV
The Hold-up
Riding hard into Florence from Sweetwater Ranch Bud Lane hunted
up Buck McKee at his favorite gambling-joint, and, in a white
heat of indignation informed him in detail of everything that had
passed between Payson and himself. At once McKee inferred that
the writer of the letter was none other than Dick Lane. Realizing
that Payson was already informed of his villainy, and that in a
very short time Dick Lane himself would make his appearance on
the Sweetwater, the half-breed concluded to make a bold move
while he yet retained the confidence of Bud.
"Bud," he said, "I know the man who is sendin' the money to
Payson. It's Dick, your brother."
"But," stammered Bud, his brain whirling, "if that's so, you lied
about the Apaches killing him you--why you--must have been the
renegade, the devil who tortured prospectors."
"Why, Bud, Dick never wrote all that dime-novel nonsense about
the man who stood by him to--well, not the very last, for Dick
has managed somehow to pull through--probably he was saved by the
Rurales that were chasin' the band that rounded us up. No, it's
Payson, Jack Payson, that made up that pack of lies, just to keep
you away from me, the man that was last with Dick and so may get
on to Jack's game and block it."
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