Westward the Tide (1950) Read Free Page B

women folks?"
    Brian Coyle smiled. "If you got 'em, bring 'em! I'm takin' my daughter, younder!" He waved a hand at Jacquine, who blushed at suddenly becoming the center of attention, but her chin lifted slightly and she glanced out over the room. Her eyes met Matt's, and he smiled. She lifted one eye brow very coolly, and glanced away.
    Coyle faced the crowd. "If you're all agreed," he suggested, "just step over to Clive Massey there and he'll take your money for shares in the company. Then all you have to do is have your wagons at Split Rock Springs, ready to roll at daybreak Tuesday!"
    Several men stepped out in a bunch and started for the barrel, and that began it. Without further question the crowd lined up to a man, Matt Bardoul with them. He did notice, however, that the first four or five men who had stepped out were among those whose faces had arrested his glance when he first looked at the crowd.
    As he neared the barrel where Clive Massey was taking names and money he got his first look at the man. Massey was as tall as he himself and a good twenty pounds heavier, a stalwart, handsome man with intensely black eyes and a finely clipped black mustache. He wore one gun, low down on his right hip. It showed slightly under the skirt of his black coat.
    Matt had a haunting feeling he had seen Massey before, but could not place him. Massey wrote rapidly and as fast as the money was laid down and counted, he pocketed it.
    When Matt stepped up to the barrel, he put down his money. "Mathieu Bardoul," he said.
    There was a sudden movement as a man seated behind and to the left of Massey turned suddenly to glance up at Matt. The man was sharp featured with a hooked nose. His slate gray eyes seemed to have no depth, and they were disturbing eyes, long and narrow under the straight bar of his brows and a tight skull cap of sandcoloured hair. The man stared up at Matt, unsmiling. "From Julesburg?" he asked.
    "I've been there."
    Massey looked around. "You know this man, Logan?"
    Logon Deane!
    Matt's expression did not change. This then, was the killer, the man reputed to have slain twenty men in gun battles.
    The man at Dean's side was Batsell Hammer.
    "Don't reckon I do," Dean said, keeping his eyes on Matt's "only there was a Matt Bardoul in Julesburg who was quite a hand with a six-gun."
    Clive Massey looked up. Somehow, Matt had the impression that Massey had been waiting for him, that he was prepared for him. Why, he could not have guessed.
    Their eyes met. "Sorry," Clive said, "we don't want any gunfighters. Too much chance of trouble, and we want this to be a peaceful trip."
    The room was suddenly quiet, and men were listening. Into that silence Matt dropped his words like a stone into the utter calm of a pool. "If you'll take a renegade like Bat Hammer, you'll take anybody!"
    Hammer's face whitened and he came to his feet with an oath. "I don't have to take that!" he shouted.
    "That's right," Bardoul replied calmly, "you don't."
    Silence hung heavy in the room, and Logan Deane, his thin, cobralike lips parted in a faint smile, watched Matt as a tomcat watches another. Matt was aware of the glance, but his eyes held Hammer's and he waited, his hands, hanging loosely at his sides.
    Bat's gunhand hovered over his pistol butt, and his eyes held Bardoul's, then slowly his fingers relaxed, and his hand eased cautiously to his side. Abruptly, he sat down.
    Massey hesitated no longer. "Who recommended this man?"
    Buffalo Murphy stepped forward beligerently. "I did, an' if he don't go, I don't. We need him bad. He knows the Sioux, an' he knows that country."
    "With Phillips, yourself and Tate Lyon, I scarcely think we'll need him." Massey's voice was final.
    "We'd better take him," Phillips said suddenly. "We need him."
    Massey glanced up impatiently. This man, Matt decided, disliked opposition, was impatient of all restraint. Massey was irritated now, and his face showed it.
    A recommendation from Phillips who enjoyed the respect