Page:Frederick Faust--Free Range Lanning.djvu/81

Rh next moment he could hear her sobbing. He stood for a moment more, listening, and wishing Andrew Lanning dead with all his heart.

Then he went down to the garage, climbed into his car, and burned up the road between his place and that of Hal Dozier. There was very little similarity between the two brothers. Bill had been tall and lean; Hal was compact and solid, and he had the fighting agility of a starved coyote. He had a smooth-shaven face as well, and a clear gray eye, which was known wherever men gathered in the mountain desert. There was no news to give him. A telephone message had already told him of the death of Bill Dozier.

"But," said Charles Merchant, "there's one thing I can do. I can set you free to run down this Lanning."

"How?"

"You're needed on your ranch, Hal; but I want you to let me stand the expenses of this trip. Take your time, make sure of him, and run him into the ground."

"My frien'," said Hal Dozier, "you turn a pleasure into a real party."

And Charles Merchant left knowing that he had signed the death warrant of young Lanning. In all the history of the mountain desert there was a tale of only one man who had escaped, once Hal Dozier took his trail, and that man had blown out his own brains.