Wyoming-a Story of the Outdoor West by William MacLeod Raine

Wyoming-a Story of the Outdoor West by William MacLeod Raine

Author:William MacLeod Raine [Raine, William MacLeod]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-02-28T00:56:35.281000+00:00


CHAPTER 13. THE TWO COUSINS

The sheepman lay at his ease, the strong supple lines of him stretched lazily on the lounge. Helen was sitting beside him in an easy chair, and he watched the play of her face in the lamplight as she read from "The Little White Bird." She was very good to see, so vitally alive and full of a sweet charm that half revealed and half concealed her personality. The imagination with which she threw herself into a discussion of the child fancies portrayed by the Scotch writer captured his fancy. It delighted him to tempt her into discussions that told him by suggestion something of what she thought and was.

They were in animated debate when the door opened to admit somebody else. He had stepped in so quietly that he stood there a little while without being observed, smiling down at them with triumphant malice behind the mask he wore. Perhaps it was the black visor that was responsible for the Mephisto effect, since it hid all the face but the leering eyes. These, narrowed to slits, swept the room and came back to its occupants. He was a tall man and well-knit, dressed incongruously in up-to-date riding breeches and boots, in combination with the usual gray shirt, knotted kerchief and wide-brimmed felt hat of the horseman of the plains. The dust of the desert lay thick on him, without in the least obscuring a certain ribald elegance, a distinction of wickedness that rested upon him as his due. To this result his debonair manner contributed, though it carried with it no suggestion of weakness. To the girl who looked up and found him there he looked indescribably sinister.

She half rose to her feet, dilated eyes fixed on him.

"Good evenin'. I came to make sure y'u got safe home, Miss Messiter," he said.

The eyes of the two men clashed, the sheepman's stern and unyielding, his cousin's lit with the devil of triumph. But out of the faces of both men looked the inevitable conflict, the declaration of war that never ends till death.

"I've been a heap anxious about y'u--couldn't sleep for worrying. So I saddled up and rode in to find out if y'u were all right and to inquire how Cousin Ned was getting along."

The sheepman, not deigning to move an inch from his position, looked in silence his steady contempt.

"This conversation sounds a whole lot like a monologue up to date," he continued. "Now, maybe y'u don't know y'u have the honor of entertaining the King of the Bighorn." The man's brown hand brushed the mask from his eyes and he bowed with mocking deference. "Miss Messiter, allow me to introduce myself again--Ned Bannister, train robber, rustler, kidnapper and general bad man. But I ain't told y'u the worst yet. I'm cousin to a sheepherder' and that's the lowest thing that walks."

He limped forward a few steps and sat down. "Thank you, I believe I will stay a while since y'u both ask me so urgent.



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