Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/259

 smell of it, for of the half kegful that had gushed out what hadn't gone into the Indian had gone on to the floor.

The half-breed was raving mad. I've a notion sometimes the man wasn't human at all. He had his hand on Lee's throat when Perley came running up from the rear end.

"What's the row?" he began, and then he stopped. He was a cool devil was Perley, and he never turned a hair as he stepped between the two men. "Ah, Clancy, it's you, is it, you copper-faced renegade?"—no loud talk, no bluster, he didn't raise his voice; but his insult, the worst he could have laid his tongue to, cut like the sting of a lash.

Clancy swung around like a flash—and stared into the muzzle of the conductor's ·45. His hands were clenching and unclenching as he recognized Perley, and the cords in his neck swelled into knotty lumps.

"Ut's your worrk, this job, is ut?" he snarled. "Some day, Perley, I'll show you."

Queer, you say, he'd act like that—nothing to warrant it. Well, maybe. I don't know. I don't know what was between them before; but I do know the awful deviltry of Breed Clancy, and I know that Lee, leaning back against the car, shivered at the look that passed between the two of them.

Perley cut the half-breed short off. "Once," said he contemptuously, still quiet, not a tone raised, and his voice the more deadly for it, "once, perhaps you'll remember, I warned you to keep out of my road. Lee, how'd that Indian get in the car?"