FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89  
90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   >>   >|  
d near, after the fashion of a man who is greatly worried. He watched while Sinclair deliberately took out an old stained envelope and the stub of a pencil and started to write. His brows knitted in pain with the effort. Suddenly Gaspar cried: "Don't do it, Mr. Sinclair!" A slight lifting of Sinclair's heavy brows showed that he had heard, but he did not raise his head. "Don't do what?" "Don't try to kill that second man. Don't do it!" Gaspar was rewarded with a sneer. "Why not?" The schoolteacher was desperately eager. His glance roved from the set face of the cowpuncher and through the scragged branches of the tree. "You'll be damned for it--in your own mind. At heart you're a good man; I swear you are. And now you throw yourself away. Won't you try to open your mind and see this another way?" "Not an inch. Kid, I gave my word for this to a dead man. I told you about a friend of mine?" "I'll never forget." "I gave my word to him, though he never heard it. If I have to wait fifty years I'll live long enough to kill the gent that's in Sour Creek now. The other day I had him under my gun. Think of it! I let him go!" "And you'll let him go again. Sinclair, murder isn't in your nature. You're better than you think." "Close up," growled the cowpuncher. "It ain't no Saturday night party for me to write. Keep still till I finish." He resumed his labor of writing, drawing out each letter carefully. He had reached his signature when a low call from John Gaspar alarmed him. He looked up to find the little man pointing and staring up the trail. A horseman had just dropped over the crest and was winding leisurely down toward the plain below. "We can get behind that knoll, perhaps, before he sees us," suggested Jig in a whisper. His suggestion met with no favor. "You hear me talk, son," said Sinclair dryly. "That gent ain't carrying no guns, which means that he ain't on our trail, we being figured particularly desperate." He pointed this remark with a cold survey of the "desperate" Jig. "But the best way to make danger follow you, Jig, is to run away from it. We stay put!" He emphasized the remark by stretching luxuriously. Gaspar, however, did not seem to hear the last words. Something about the strange horseman had apparently riveted his interest. His last gesture was arrested halfway, and his color changed perceptibly. "You stay, then, Mr. Sinclair," he said hurriedly. "I'm going to slip
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89  
90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Sinclair
 

Gaspar

 

horseman

 
remark
 
cowpuncher
 
desperate
 

reached

 

carefully

 

signature

 

letter


resumed
 
writing
 

drawing

 

staring

 

leisurely

 

looked

 

dropped

 

pointing

 

alarmed

 

winding


Something
 

strange

 

apparently

 
luxuriously
 

emphasized

 
stretching
 
riveted
 

interest

 

hurriedly

 

perceptibly


changed

 

gesture

 
arrested
 
halfway
 

follow

 
danger
 

carrying

 

whisper

 

suggestion

 

finish


survey

 

pointed

 
figured
 

suggested

 
rewarded
 
schoolteacher
 

desperately

 

showed

 
glance
 

damned