Nan of Music Mountain | Page 7

had handled her rifle in the same quick, sure
way. De Spain could not dance at all; but no one could success fully
accuse him of not knowing how to handle any sort of a gun. It was only
now, as she came so very close to him for the first time since the
mortification of the morning, and he saw the smoothness of her
pink-brown cheeks, that he could ungrudgingly give her full credit for
shooting him down. He forgave her, unasked, the humiliation she had
put on him. He felt an impulse to go up to her now that she had stopped
dancing and congratulate her honestly, instead of boorishly as he had
done at the match, and to say, unreservedly, that she was the better shot
indeed, one of the best he had ever seen.
But while he thought all of this he did not stir a step. The two dancers
at once disappeared, and a new and rougher party crowded out on the
floor.
"Now, isn't that a pretty bunch!" exclaimed the critical woman again.
"That's the Calabasas gang. Look at those four men with the red
neckerchiefs. Sandusky, that big fellow, with the crooked jaw Butch,
they call him and his jaw's not half as crooked as Sandusky himself,
either. He couldn't lie in bed straight. And Harvey Logan, with his
black hair plastered over his eyes. Why, for one drink those two fellows
would turn loose on this crowd and kill half a dozen. And there's two of
Duke Morgan's cow boys with them, boozing old Bull Page, and that
squint-eyed Sassoon he's worse than the others, that fellow a fine bunch
to allow in this town."
De Spain had excellent ears. He had heard of these Calabasas men of

Sandusky and of the little fellow, Logan. They had much more than a
local reputation as outlaws; they were known from one end of the
Superstition Range to the other as evil-doers of more than ordinary
ruthlessness. De Spain, from force of habit, studied every detail of their
make-up. Both showed more than traces of drink, and both securing
partners joined rudely in the dancing. It had become second nature to
de Spain to note even insignificant details concerning men, and he took
an interest in and remarked how very low Logan carried his gun in
front of his hip. Sandusky's holster was slung higher and farther back
on the side. Logan wore a tan shirt and khaki. Sandusky, coatless, was
dressed in a white shirt, with a red tie, and wore a soiled, figured
waistcoat fastened at the bottom by a cut-glass button.
The Sleepy Cat gossip commented on how much money these men had
been spending all day.
She wondered aloud, reckless apparently of consequences, who had
been robbed, lately, to provide it. Her companion scolded her for
stirring up talk that might make trouble; averred she didn't believe half
the stories she heard; asserted that these men lived quietly at Calabasas,
minding their own affairs. "And they're kind to poor folks, too." "Sure,"
grimaced the obdurate one, "with other people's money." De Spain had
no difficulty in placing the two women. One was undoubtedly the wife
of a railroad man, who hated the mountain outlaws, and the other was,
with equal certainty, a town sympathizer with slandered men, and the
two represented the two community elements in Sleepy Cat.
De Spain, discontented, turning again into Main Street, continued on
toward the Thief River stage barn. He knew an old Scotch Medicine
Bend barnman that worked there, a boy hood friend; but the man,
McAlpin, was out. After looking the horses over and inspecting the
wagons with a new but mild curiosity, awakened by Jeffries's proposal,
de Spain walked back to ward the station. He had virtually decided not
to take the job that Jeffries painted as so attractive, and resolved now to
take the night train back to Medicine Bend. Medicine Bend was his
home. He knew every man, woman, and child in the town. Before the
tragic death of his father, his mother had lived there, and de Spain had

grown up in the town and gone to school there. He was a railroad man,
anyway a modest trainmaster and not eager for stage-line management.
The prospect of reducing the Sinks to a lawand-order basis at his own
proper risk could not be alluring to the most aggressive of
law-and-order men and de Spain was not aggressive. Yet within a
moment of his sensible decision he was to be hurried by a mere
accident to an exactly contrary fate.
As he passed Grant Street again he encountered a party on horseback
heading for the river bridge. Trotting their horses leisurely, they turned
the corner directly in front of de Spain. There were