Gunman's Reckoning, page 149 by Max Brand
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your efforts. They are worthless. You see that crowd gathering yonder? They have come to see Lord Nick prepare you for a hole in the ground. And make no mistake: if you are here when he returns that hole will have to be dug--unless they throw you out for the claws of the buzzards. In the meantime, our efforts have been wasted completely. I hadn't enough time. I had thrown the fear of sudden death into Landis, and in another hour he would have signed away his soul to me for fear of poison."
The colonel paused to chuckle at some enjoyable memory.
"Then Nick came. You see, I know all about Nick."
"And Nick knows all about you?"
For a moment the agate, catlike eyes of the colonel clouded and cleared again in their unfathomable manner.
"At moments, Donnegan," he said, "you have rare perceptions. That is exactly it--Nick knows just about everything concerning me. And so--roll your pack and climb on your horse and get away. I think you may have another five minutes before he comes."
Donnegan turned on his heel. He went to the door of the hut and threw it open. Lou sat beside Landis holding his hand, and the murmur of her voice was still pleasant as an echo through the room when she looked and saw Donnegan. At that she rose and her face hardened as she looked at him. Landis, also, lifted his head, and his face was convulsed with hatred. So Donnegan closed the door and went softly away to his own shack.
She hated him even as Landis hated him, it seemed. He should have known that he would not be thanked for bringing back her lover to her with a bullet through his shoulder. Sitting in his cabin, he took his head between his hands and thought of life and death, and made up his mind. He was afraid. If Lord Nick had been the devil himself Donnegan could not have been more afraid. But if the big stranger had been ten devils instead of one Donnegan would not have found it in his soul to run away.
Nothing remained for him in The Corner, it seemed, except his position as a ma