Page:Frederick Faust--Free Range Lanning.djvu/298

294 and ride away with you. Understand, when you get inside the house, there'll be a big temptation to jump to one side and get behind the wall—just one twitch of your muscles, and you'd be safe. But, fast as you could move, Scottie, powder drives lead a lot faster. And I'll have you centered every minute. You'll make a pretty little target against the light, besides. You understand?

"The moment you even start to move fast, I pull the trigger. Remember it, Scottie. For as sure as there's a hell, I'll send you into it head first, if you don't."

"So help me Heaven," said Scottie, "I'll do what I can. I think I can talk 'em into it. But if I don't?"

"If you don't, you're dead. That's short, and that's sweet. Keep it in your head. Go back and tell them it would take too great a risk to try to fix me.

"And there's another thing to remember. If you should be able to get behind the wall without being shot, you're not safe. Not by a long way, Scottie. I'd still be alive. And, though you'd have Hal Dozier there to cut up as you pleased, I'd be here outside the cabin watching it with my rifle. And I'd tag some of you when you tried to get out. And if I didn't get you all I'd start on your trail. Scottie, you fellows, even when you had Allister to lead you, couldn't get off scot-free from Dozier. Scottie, I give you my solemn word of honor, you'll find me a harder man to get free from than Hal Dozier.

"Here's the last thing: If you do what I tell you—if you get that crowd of drunken brutes out of the cabin and away without harming Dozier, I'll wipe out the score between us. No matter what you told the rest of them, you know I've never broken a promise, and that I never shall."

He stopped and, stepping back to the rocks, sank